Politics

Fees At SD Parks And Recreation Centers To Be Increased

By Alison St John / Reporter

Published July 20, 2010 at 7:31 AM PDT

This story was published more than 14 years ago.

The San Diego City Council has voted to raise fees at city parks and recreation centers for the second year in a row. The increases will raise $123,000 dollars for the city’s general fund. The city is facing a $72 million deficit.

Community member Jarvis Ross urged the council to reconsider.

“Some of the teenagers - if they’re able to maintain their activities in these parks, they stay out of trouble,” Ross said in public testimony, “So please, there are other places to find money.”

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The council decided to keep swim classes and dance lessons free for children from low income families. A family of four with an annual income of $43,300 would qualify. Charging those children a fee would have raised an extra $60,000 in revenues, and Council President Ben Hueso said the council would try to find the money another way.

A one-time pass to a city pool won’t change. It remains $2 for children and $4 for adults.

Adult fitness teachers conducting classes on city park land will now have to get a permit of between $76 and $93 dollars a quarter.

Most of the fees increased only a dollar or two, and some fees, like the fee to use the Spreckles Organ Pavilion, actually went down.

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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.