DeMiao Strategizes to Push His Fiscal Agenda

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published December 3, 2008 at 2:40 PM PST

This story was published more than 16 years ago.

One of the four new San Diego city council member taking office next week has found a way to expand his office staff, while still cutting his budget. Carl DeMaio plans to use a different approach to b

One of the four new San Diego city council member taking office next week has found a way to expand his office staff, while still cutting his budget. Carl DeMaio plans to use a different approach to bolster his agenda. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

DeMaio says he will represent his north city neighborhoods, but his main focus will be changing fiscal policy at the city as a whole.

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Two of his staff members will be full-time fiscal policy analysts. And DeMaio is keeping two more part- time staffers who will be paid for independently by a political education committee he started four years ago.

DeMaio : "I still believe that you need to have outside voter education and advocacy, so that you can keep the public pressure on the politicians to reform the city."

DeMaio spent $140 thousand from his previous business, The Performance Institute, on his political education committee back in 2004. The committee was instrumental in defeating the tourist tax increase, and in passing a measure to promote outsourcing city services.

DeMaio’s 3 newly elected council colleagues do not share his views on these issues. But Demaio says if he can’t get the votes he needs from the city council, he’ll use his staff to get the issues on the ballot.

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.