San Diego's new ethics officer to take on city hall

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published February 9, 2006 at 9:00 PM PST

This story was published more than 18 years ago.

The head of Mayor Jerry Sander's new Ethics Office, Joanne Sawyer Knoll, Thursday, laid out a strategy to change the culture at San Diego's troubled city hall. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

Sawyer Knoll says in the six weeks since she began work at city hall, she's become aware that problems are not only at the top management level but throughout the workforce.

She plans to do an ethics audit of all city departments, and conduct mandatory ethics training. Her goal is to proactively change the culture of secrecy that allows ethical lapses to go under the radar.

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Knoll: "Ethical issues come to people in a number of ways and one is a person sees something that is clearly not right, but because of the culture I the workplace they don't feel comfortable talking about it, I think our office is set to try and remedy that."

Sawyer Knoll says she'll ask every employee to fill out a questionnaire to help detect problem areas. She also plans to compile a "master code of conduct" for the city, available to employees and the public on line. Alison S 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.