New Committee to Hone City's Strong Mayor Governance Format

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published March 20, 2007 at 2:02 PM PDT

This story was published more than 17 years ago.

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders has announced a new citizens' committee with the task of fine tuning changes to the city's strong-mayor form of government. Several high profile San Diegans are on the co

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders has announced a new citizens' committee with the task of fine tuning changes to the city's strong-mayor form of government. Several high profile San Diegans are on the committee, such as former San Diego city schools chief, Alan Bersin, and former Supervising Superior Court Judge James Millikin. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

San Diegans passed the strong mayor initiative, Proposition F, in 2004. The new form of city government went into effect a little over a year later when Mayor Sanders took office. Many important details remain to be sorted out. Sanders says that's the new charter committee's job.

Become a KPBS sponsor

Sanders : It was a half-finished job with the passage of strong mayor. We're charging this group of citizens with coming up with a better way of our system working.

The strong mayor system gives the mayor the power to create the budget rather than the city manager. But the city is still adjusting to the new balance of power between the mayor and council -- the executive and legislative branches.

The charter committee will come up with recommendations that San Diegans will vote on next year, either on the new February ballot or in June. 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.