Mayor Sanders Unveils Five-Year Financial Plan

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published November 15, 2006 at 11:52 AM PST

This story was published more than 18 years ago.

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders announced his five year financial plan to pull the city out of its financial turmoil. However he gave few details of the kind of cuts he has in mind. KPBS reporter Alison

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders announced his five year financial plan to pull the city out of its financial turmoil. However he gave few details of the kind of cuts he has in mind. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

The mayor’s plan proposes to cut more than 900 jobs from city staff over the next five year, not including police, fire or lifeguard services. His administration has managed to cut only 38 positions this year. But his plan has 670 job cuts next year alone. Sanders admits hundreds of job losses will affect city services.

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Sanders: You can’t let 700 positions go and not get some service cuts --that would be disingenuous of me to say that.

However the mayor would not volunteer any information about in which departments those cuts will come. Meanwhile as the mayor delivered his plan, the city council’s budget committee was meeting downstairs. The council is concerned the mayor is already making cuts that affect their constituents without their consent. 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.