Politics

SANDAG To Try Social Media

By Alison St John / Reporter

Published October 26, 2009 at 12:41 PM PDT

This story was published more than 15 years ago.

The agency responsible for planning future growth in San Diego is trying some new strategies to get the public involved.

The San Diego Association of Governments, or SANDAG, is responsible for prioritizing how to spend billions of dollars on freeway expansion or public transport. It also has a hand in projects like beach sand replenishment or whether to reinstate the Coronado Bay toll. The agency is currently reviewing its strategy to get public input.

More than a thousand people responded to a poll by saying they want more communication via email and the web. Currently, SANDAG’s web site does not accept comments.

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Ann Steinberger of SANDAG said plans are already afoot to use the web more, rather than relying on people showing up for meetings.

"On Facebook” she said, "our plan is to focus on projects, so if someone is interesting in the Interstate 15 project, then they could just go to the Facebook page and click on that project and follow it. We did sign up for a Twitter site but we’re not twittering yet."

Steinberg said the jury is still out on whether Twitter is a good tool for a public agency like SANDAG. She said the Facebook site should be up later this year.

SANDAG spends $300,000 a year on public participation, not including separate budgets for specific projects.

SANDAG will be the first agency in the state required to include a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in its next Regional Transportation Plan Update, due in 2011. Steinberger said they’ll be looking for public input on how to tackle that.

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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.