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Parks, Libraries, Youth Programs Endangered by Projected Budget Gap

By Alison St John / Reporter,  KPBS Public Broadcasting
Published January 28, 2008 at 4:10 PM PST
This story was published more than 16 years ago.

San Diego city council is looking ahead to another difficult budget year. Both the mayor and council agree that strengthening police and fire is their first priority. But a citizens campaign has begun

Parks, Libraries, Youth Programs Endangered by Projected Budget Gap

San Diego city council is looking ahead to another difficult budget year. Both the mayor and council agree that strengthening police and fire is their first priority. But a citizens campaign has begun, to protect programs that prevent crime. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

The city of San Diego will have to make millions of dollars in cuts yet again this year to balance its budget. And if the cuts don’t come from police and fire, they threaten parks and libraries.

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But Christie Figueroa of the San Diego Organizing Project got a commitment from the council not to forget the kids.

Figueroa: We want to change the culture here at city hall …we want our elected at city hall to be thinking how does every decision affect our youth… we want our values represented in your budget.

Councilwoman Toni Atkins says she’s on board.

Atkins : In some of our neighborhoods the crisis we face may not be a landslide or a fire, and thank God for that, but it is increased gang activity, it is not enough programs for youth, if I were to identify the crisis in my communities it would be that.

Gang related homicides increased more than 50 % in the city last year. Council President Scott Peter says prevention make sense whatever crisis the city is facing.

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So maybe in the 60s We could have done a better jobs of putting these developments in so we wouldn’t have to worry about these landslides , but now we’re paying the price and now we know with respect the wildfires maybe we should have been managing brush better and now I’m concerned that the gangs is the same thing its because we’re not investing in parks and children in the front end.

However with property taxes down and a commitment to pay off pension debts faster, the city will be hard pressed to even maintain the youth programs already in place.

Alison St John, KPBS News.

Alison St John
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.
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