Mayor Releases List of At-Risk City Services

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published May 2, 2008 at 2:05 PM PDT

This story was published more than 16 years ago.

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders has released the list of the first city services that might be turned over to competitors from the private sector. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

Sanders proposes to allow the private sector to bid on work done by about 300 city employees, including street-sweeping, and maintaining storm drains and sidewalks. Trash pick up would also be open to managed competition, but rather than privatizing the whole department, the mayor plans to start with one-fifth of the city’s trash services. That way, if the contract does not go well, city crew can always “pick up” the work again.

Private contractors must be able to show they can do the job at least 10 percent cheaper than the city. The city's cost of providing workers with health care is not included in the comparison, so a private bidder won’t be able to undercut the city simply by cutting health care.

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If the city council agrees the mayor’s plan includes enough safeguards to protect the public interest, private companies could be picking up some city trash by next summer.

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.