An Unlikely Team Tackles City Council Reform

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published June 9, 2008 at 12:03 PM PDT

This story was published more than 15 years ago.

San Diego city council woman Donna Frye plans a bipartisan Initiative to get the public engaged in improving how the city council does business. Frye has teamed up with Carl Demaio, who won the Distri

San Diego city councilwoman Donna Frye plans a bipartisan Initiative to get the public engaged in improving how the city council does business. Frye has teamed up with Carl Demaio, who won the District 5 seat, and will join the Council in December. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

Frye and Demaio a re an unlikely team. The pair has frequently been on opposite sides of issues such as privatizing city services. But they’ve joined forces to work on something of mutual interest - how to improve and strengthen the city council – and they plan to get the public involved.

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Demaio: We’re gonna do a road show… Frye : Oh yea. Demaio : It’s a town hall dialogue.. Frye : we might bring food… Demaio : Absolutely! Come on down, We're probably going to hold them at night ,so people can have their lives during the day and participate in government at night . Frye : And they actually get a chance to voice their opinions because this is in large part listening to the public as well.

Frye and Demaio say the strong mayor form of government has left a lot of unanswered questions which they hope to resolve with recommendations they’ll put to the new city council in December. 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.