City low on funds finds budget interests hard to prioritize

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published January 25, 2006 at 9:00 PM PST

This story was published more than 18 years ago.

San Diego's city council members have submitted their budget priorities early this year, in anticipation of a year of unprecedented budget cuts. They hope the mayor will take their priorities into ac

San Diego's city council members have submitted their budget priorities early this year, in anticipation of a year of unprecedented budget cuts. They hope the mayor will take their priorities into account when he proposes a budget in April. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

Each city council person wants to maintain services in their own district at the same time as resolving the massive financial obligations faced by the city as a whole.

Councilmember Tony Young says he hopes the worst case scenario will be maintaining services like parks, libraries and streets at the same level as this year.

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Councilwoman Donna Frye hopes to restore library and pool hours cut last year. Brian Maienschein puts road repairs at the top of his list of district priorities, while Jim Madaffer cites brush and weed abatement high on his list. Councilwoman Toni Atkins wants to preserve funding for small business development, but all the council members acknowledge funding employee pension and health obligations comes before everything else.

That could eat up a quarter of the city's available general fund dollars. 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.