Del Mar Plans To Build New City Hall

By Alison St John / Reporter

Published March 4, 2014 at 3:00 AM PST

This story was published more than 10 years ago.

The upscale beach community of Del Mar has a population of just more than 4,000 people. It has been making do with a city hall that was once a little brick schoolhouse, but now more than 70 percent of the residents want to see a change.

Del Mar Mayor Lee Haydu said plans to replace the existing aging building have gone nowhere for two decades, but she said, this City Council is determined to move ahead.

Del Mar City Hall, looking towards the Pacific. The Mayor hopes to replace it with a new city hall within the next three years. March 2014

“The building’s been there since the '20s,” she said. “We’ve had it as a city hall since the '70s. It’s very deteriorated, and so we just decided in the past year that it’s something we’re going to move forwards with — it’s time.”

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Haydu said the city will be looking for architectural bids. Estimates suggest it could cost between $7 million and $8 million. The City Council has promised not to raise the sales tax, but paying for the project could include a revenue bond, selling off assets or a public-private partnership.

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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.