Council votes to guarantee pension board legal protection

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published May 1, 2006 at 9:00 PM PDT

This story was published more than 18 years ago.

The San Diego City Council has finally reached agreement on whether the city should be responsible for the legal bills of pension board members indicted on conflict of interest charges. KPBS reporter

The San Diego City Council has finally reached agreement on whether the city should be responsible for the legal bills of pension board members indicted on conflict of interest charges. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

The council voted unanimously to stand by its decision, made in 2002, to guarantee extra legal protections for the pension board. But the council says it wont offer that legal protection for any actions taken by board members from now on. Councilman Jim Madaffer proposed the motion.

Madaffer: "We would honor the promises that this council made, but going forward the indemnity would cease."

Become a KPBS sponsor

This means the City of San Diego is potentially still on the hook for legal bills of defendants in the ongoing battles over whether pension increases were illegally granted in 2002.

The District Attorney has indicted six former pension board members. Their attorneys have postponed their arraignments twice, but a Superior Court Judge is scheduled to charge them with conflict of interest on Wednesday morning. Alison St John, KPBS News.

Alison St John

twitter

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.