Supervisors want more fed funding

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published January 23, 2006 at 9:00 PM PST

This story was published more than 18 years ago.

San Diego County Supervisors today added their voices to those protesting the new federal guidelines for handing out Homeland Security funds. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

The Supervisors oppose the new federal list of places eligible for urban security funding. Under new risk assessment criteria, San Diego could be cut off next year. County Supervisor Ron Roberts says the County's busy border crossing, its port, its huge military installations and the San Onofre Nuclear power plant make it more vulnerable than other regions that were given higher priority for federal funding.

Roberts: "Fort Lauderdale Florida is deemed to have more of a risk I know Spring Break could get interrupted and that could be serious but what ever criteria the federal government's using, it makes no sense."

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The Supervisors will visit Washington this spring, and lobbying for more federal urban security funding will be at the top of their agenda. At issue is about $14 million a year, money used to improve emergency preparedness in the region. 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.