Sanders Outlines Managed Competition Plan

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published September 10, 2007 at 7:06 AM PDT

This story was published more than 17 years ago.

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders is laying out a time line to start managed competition at the city. Voters authorized him to privatize some city services last year with Proposition C. KPBS reporter Alis

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders is laying out a time line to start managed competition (pdf) at the city. Voters authorized him to privatize some city services last year with Proposition C . KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

Mayor Sanders says managed competition is not the same thing as outsourcing. He says outsourcing simply contracts out city services to the private sector whereas managed competition allows city employees to come up with the best model to compete with the private sector.

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Fire, police and lifeguard services will be exempt from managed competition. But Sanders says other city services don't have to be provided by government employees

Sanders: I may have a very different idea than a labor union about what's inherently governmental. If I can be assured that we can provide a safe product that's effective for citizens then that's what we'll go for. If I don't think it can be provided by anybody but city employees, then we won't compete it out.

In an effort to insulate awarding private contracts from political influence, an independent review board will be appointed. To win a contract at the city, a private firm would have to save the city 10 percent.

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.