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Supervisors Approve New Minority-Majority District

By Alison St John / Reporter

Published September 6, 2011 at 1:58 PM PDT

This story was published more than 13 years ago.

The final map the San Diego Redistricting Commission approved.

Supervisors Approve New Minority-Majority District

By unanimous vote, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors approved new maps to define district boundaries. One new district has a majority of minority voters.

San Diego County Board of Supervisors today voted unanimously in favor of new maps to define their district boundaries for the next 10 years. The revised maps create a district with a majority of minority voters.

The new maps approved by the Supervisors were revised after the American Civil Liberties Union and minority groups said they did not comply with the federal Voting Rights Act.

The revisions changed the boundary line of Supervisor Greg Cox’s South Bay district to contain a majority of minority voters.

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Cox said he’s glad he still represents the cities surrounding San Diego Bay, which have common interests

"I am pleased that staff has been able to come up with a map that upholds the integrity of the voting rights act and has been able to draw a first supervisorial district with a majority minority district of citizens of voting age population," Cox said, "while retaining the community of interests surrounding the big bay."

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Critics of the maps argued minority votes are still being diluted in the North County and in Southeast San Diego, but say the new maps are a step in the right direction.

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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.