Politics

Bitter Recall Election In Oceanside

By Alison St John / Reporter

Published December 8, 2009 at 3:00 AM PST

This story was published more than 15 years ago.

Bitter Recall Election in Oceanside

A recall election today in Oceanside has stirred up passionate feelings and big political contributions.

Both sides of the bitter campaign to recall Oceanside city councilman Jerry Kern have raised about $200,000. That’s significant money for an off season election in a city with under 200,000 residents.

Most of the money has come from labor interests on one side, and developer and real estate interests on the other. Much of the money has come from out of town. Opposing interest groups see this election as a bell-weather for policy battles elsewhere.

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Kern’s supporters say his fiscal conservatism will save the city budget from being overwhelmed by labor demands. The campaign to recall him began with a firefighters union angry at Kern’s hard line stance on negotiations, but it has picked up support from neighborhood groups who don’t like his pro-business and pro-development approach.

The city, which is the third largest in San Diego County, has been forced to spend half a million dollars on the election, though it is facing a $10 million budget deficit over the next two years.

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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.