Politics

Supporters Of Managed Competition Try Another Tack

By Alison St John / Reporter

Published November 23, 2009 at 3:00 AM PST

This story was published more than 14 years ago.

Supporters of Managed Competition Try Another Tack

A coalition of San Diego contractors is joining forces with a San Diego city councilman to launch a campaign to make managed competition more viable for the private sector.

The November 2010 elections are a year away but interest groups are already launching signature gathering campaigns to put measures on the ballot. A coalition of San Diego contractors is joining forces with a San Diego city councilman to launch a campaign to make managed competition more viable for the private sector.

Construction contractors are among those supporting a measure that would change the rules for competing with city workers for contracts. City councilman Carl DeMaio, a long time advocate of privatizing city services, says the initiative would level the playing field.

“If we want to end sweetheart contracts and inefficient monopolies in city government, “ DeMaio said, “we need voters to impose reforms from the outside.”

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Lorena Gonzales of the Labor Council said the proposal would allow contractors to undercut city workers by offering low wages, with no health care or benefits.

“I couldn’t imagine that somebody in these economic times would put such a give away to corporations on a local ballot initiative,” Gonzales said.

The measure is called the “Competition and Transparency in City Contracting” Initiative.

Supporters need to collect 96,000 signatures by next June to qualify it for the November ballot.

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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.