Steve Francis Outspending Jerry Sanders in San Diego Mayor's Race

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published March 25, 2008 at 12:44 PM PDT

This story was published more than 16 years ago.

San Diego mayoral candidate Steve Francis has contributed four times more money to his own campaign then incumbent mayor Jerry Sanders has raised in campaign contributions. KPBS reporter Alison St Joh

San Diego mayoral candidate Steve Francis has contributed four times more money to his own campaign then incumbent mayor Jerry Sanders has raised in campaign contributions. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

Businessman Steve Francis has spent a million dollars of his own fortune on his campaign for mayor so far this year, much of it on TV ads.

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Francis: I'm paying for my campaign myself and I think that's better, I think people at least know they can look into who I am. At least with me you know what you're getting.

Jerry Sanders has spent just over $200,000 on his campaign this year, mostly on print and web ads. He's been fund raising for his campaign since last June. In that nine months he's raised less than half a million dollars

Sanders: It's impossible to raise more than a million dollars in a primary campaign at $320 a person, the only way you can do that is by spending your own money and I don't have $4 million in my bank account to spend.

Sanders says he hopes to be able to afford TV ads in the final two weeks before the primary. In the mean time he is maintaining his visibility with news conferences about city business several times a week. 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.