Councilmen City Attorney Candidates Vie to Polish Job Descriptions

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published March 20, 2008 at 2:32 PM PDT

This story was published more than 16 years ago.

Two San Diego city councilmen running for city attorney are defending their right to describe themselves as lawyers on the ballot. KPBS reporter Alison St John explains.

Scott Peters wants his profession on the ballot to be described as “council president and environmental lawyer.” Brain Maienshcein has submitted his description to the city clerk as “councilmember and business attorney.”

But a member of the Republican Party Central Committee challenged that in court, Mark Rawlins’ attorney argues that San Diego's municipal code allows only one designated profession on the ballot and it has to be the one the candidate was practicing in the previous year.

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The Republican party has backed Jan Goldsmith for city attorney.

The city clerk says state law supersedes the muni code and several candidates have put two descriptors on their ballots.

Both Maienschein, and Peters have hired attorneys and the city clerk is being represented by outside counsel. The legal scuffle will come back before the judge on March 27th days before the registrar of voters has to start mailing out ballots.

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.