Politics

Chula Vista Bites the Bullet

By Alison St John / Reporter

Published May 6, 2009 at 2:06 PM PDT

This story was published more than 15 years ago.

Alison St John / KPBS

The city of Chula Vista's logo at City Hall in this undated photo.

The City of Chula Vista is facing the hard reality of an overwhelming “no” vote to a proposed sales tax increase. KPBS reporter Alison St John spoke to Mayor Cheryl Cox after 67 percent of Chula Vistans rejected the tax hike.

This week’s vote was different from the result polls predicted back in January. At that time, more than 60 percent of Chula Vistans supported a city sales tax increase. But since then, the State has imposed its own sales tax hike.

Cox says, without the one cent tax increase, Chula Vista must go ahead with more layoffs.

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"There are 60 layoffs pending,"she says,"The city manager sent out a message to employees today. We‘ve already cut the employees by about 17 percent. By the time we’re finished, the city manager estimates we’ll be back at 1990 levels."

Cox says pension costs are looming over the city. She says she hopes reforms can be made collaboratively.

Chula Vista is the second largest city in San Diego County. It has grown exponentially in the last few years, but the rapid slowdown in development has hit the city hard.

Alison St John, KPBS News.

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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.