San Diego Land Use Chief Resigns in Further Sunroad Controversy

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published August 14, 2007 at 12:17 PM PDT

This story was published more than 17 years ago.

The head of land use at the city of San Diego has resigned, after it emerged he had lobbied to keep the height of the Sunroad Centrum building over the FAA's safety limit. KPBS reporter Alison St John

The head of land use at the city of San Diego has resigned, after it emerged he had lobbied to keep the height of the Sunroad Centrum building over the FAA's safety limit. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

Mayor Jerry Sanders has announced that his land use chief, Jim Waring, has resigned. Waring lobbied city councilwoman Donna Frye last week to see if pilots in her district would accept lowering the Sunroad building to 166 feet, instead of the 160 the FAA requires.

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Today Frye said she was surprised Waring would take an action contrary to the position taken by the mayor, who said in June the building has to meet FAA height limits.

Frye : There's a whole lot of questions here and I think the public has a right to know how this came about who's idea this was and who knew about it because its seems very odd that somebody acted independently without someone else's knowledge.

The mayor's office says Sanders is clear that the building must come down to 160 feet.

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.