Give Now
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Available On Air Stations
  • Full Schedule
Watch Live

Balboa Park Looking for Wider Support

By Alison St John / Reporter,  KPBS Public Broadcasting
Published December 18, 2008 at 2:32 PM PST
This story was published more than 15 years ago.

A San Diego city advisory group, the Balboa Park Committee, concludes the city alone will not be able to cover operation and maintenance of the Park into the future. KPBS reporter Alison St John has

Balboa Park Looking for Wider Support

 A San Diego city advisory group, the Balboa Park Committee, concludes the city alone  will not be able to cover operation and maintenance of the Park into the future. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

Balboa Park is one of the most visited city parks in the United States, but only about a quarter of the visitors are city residents.

Advertisement
Become a KPBS sponsor

Vicki Granowitz chairs the committee that’s held nine months of public hearings into how to support the park financially in the future.  Granowitz says their recommendation is to form a new non-profit task force, including the County, to explore future ways of funding Balboa Park.

Granowitz: The committee's view is that we should invite the County to join us: have the County be a little more involved in looking at the future of the park.

Granowitz says though individual County Supervisors sometimes contribute to the park, the County as a whole does not. She says private investment will also have to play a bigger role if Balboa Park is to remain a regional asset.

Deferred maintenance at the park is estimated to be well over a quarter of a billion dollars.

City Councilman Todd Gloria, who represents the district that includes Balboa Park, says he hopes a more regional solution is found to funding park mainentance before the Centennial in 2015

Advertisement
Become a KPBS sponsor

The advisory committee introduces its report at a meeting tonight (Thursday) at the War Memorial Building.

Alison St John, KPBS news.

Alison St John
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.
More News