Public Safety

San Diegans Asked To Help Close City Deficit

By Alison St John / Reporter

Published October 28, 2009 at 1:35 PM PDT

This story was published more than 15 years ago.

A San Diego city budget meeting being held in Golden Hill this evening is the opening salvo to what promises to be one of the most difficult budget years in the city's history.

This time last year the city of San Diego was facing an $80 million deficit and that looked large. This year the deficit has more than doubled. The public meeting tonight is designed to give residents a chance to hear the mayor's assessment and give their input.

"The council wanted to really be proactive in getting community input up front and early in regard to the huge budget deficit of $179 million that the city is facing," says Councilman Kevin Faulconer, who serves on the city's budget committee.

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Last year public protests prevented libraries from being closed. But this year the mayor says all departments, including public safety, will see cuts. Four more public meetings about the budget are scheduled before the end of the year and the mayor has warned that layoffs may have to begin as early as January.

San Diegans Asked To Help Close City Deficit

A San Diego city budget meeting being held in Golden Hill this evening is the opening salvo to what promises to be one of the most difficult budget years in the city's history

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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.