Hopes for a Stimulus Package for San Diego

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published December 15, 2008 at 2:00 AM PST

This story was published more than 15 years ago.

If the new administration under Barack Obama offers a stimulus package to build infrastructure projects, the San Diego region will be ready to jump. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

If the new administration under Barack Obama offers a stimulus package to build infrastructure projects, the San Diego region will be ready to jump.

KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

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San Diego’s Association of Governments, or SANDAG, has asked all 18 cities and the county for lists of projects they’ve already approved, but are simply waiting for money to put out for bid.

The consortium has come up with a master list of freeway improvements, transit projects and public works projects that would cost just over $7 billion.

Gary Gallegos of SANDAG says, if granted, the work would create about 95 thousand jobs and bring in $5 billion in wages to the region.

Gallegos: "You know we are trying to bring all of San Diego together so that if there is a stimulus program, hopefully we can be poised and ready to do things that will help people’s lives."

Gallegos says San Diego should qualify for about 1 % of any infrastructure stimulus package offered. He says the numbers being talked about vary from $150 billion to a trillion dollars.

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Chula Vista is the city with the biggest wish list ready to go, Carlsbad and the city of San Diego are next.

The list will be presented to mayors from around the region for final approval later this week.

Alison St John, KPBS news.

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.