Who Decides Plans for Public Tidelands

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published August 12, 2008 at 11:49 AM PDT

This story was published more than 16 years ago.

The San Diego Port District is suing to prevent an initiative to redevelop the 10th Avenue Marine Terminal from getting on the November ballot. The developers who want the measure to go to the voters

The San Diego Port District is suing to prevent an initiative to redevelop the 10 ^th Avenue Marine Terminal from getting on the November ballot. The developers who want the measure to go to the voters have hired an attorney with a history in San Diego. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

The attorney for the developers fighting the Port District is Fred Woocher, who represented San Diego city councilwoman Donna Frye in her 2004 bid for mayor. Woocher lost that battle to count five thousand votes for Frye, disqualified because the bubble on the ballot wasn’t filled in correctly.

Become a KPBS sponsor

Woocher says he took this case because it is also about letting voters have their say.

Woocher: Because the very act that set up the Port district states that the voters

of the Port District have the right of initiative and referendum

But Michael Shanafelt, representing the Port Commissioners, says the State Legislature set up the Port District to manage the public tidelands around San Diego Bay

Shanfelt : The legislature made clear that the Board of Port commissioners alone could amend the master plan.

Become a KPBS sponsor

The Port Commissioners say the plan to build hotels or even a football stadium on top of the Marine Terminal will threaten shrinking cargo space around San Diego Bay.

Alison St John, KPBS news.

Alison St John

twitter

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.