KPBS’ debuts Citizen Voices

KPBS announces the debut of Citizen Voices, a new blog featuring six “everyday” San Diegans from various cultural backgrounds and parts of the county who will share their individual perspectives on election matters.

The new Citizen Voices will be introduced on KPBS Radio’s These Days on Monday, February 4. The guest commentators were selected from nearly 100 applicants who ranged from university professors to college students, surfers to soccer moms and more (see bios following). While none is a professional journalist or broadcaster, each will use their writing skill to contribute thought-provoking observations and opinions. Their diverse viewpoints come from being of different faiths and ethnicities, professions, sexual orientations and political parties.

The Citizen Voices bloggers will each provide commentary on a weekly basis and also share their observations regularly on KPBS Radio’s These Days and KPBS TV’s Envision San Diego.

The project is not only about giving voice to six individuals, it’s about widening the platform to expand the public debate. To enhance the Citizen Voices project, kpbs.org visitors are encouraged to participate by providing responses to commentaries and have their viewpoints shared as well. To learn more about Citizen Voices, go to kpbs.org/citizenvoices.

KPBS is a public service of San Diego State University, serving the region with TV, radio and Internet content that is educational as well as entertaining - and free of commercial interruption.

Trina Boice

Trina Boice was honored as the California Young Mother of the Year in 2004. She’s the author of six books, speaks Spanish, and has a real estate license, travel agent license, two master’s degrees, and a black belt in tae kwon do.

She worked as a legislative assistant for a congressman in Washington D.C., and was given the “Points of Light” Award and Presidential Volunteer Service Award for her domestic and international service. She wrote a column called “The Boice Box” for a newspaper in Georgia, where she lived for 15 years. She writes for Roots Television and Go2.com, and helps her husband operate their real estate appraisal company.

Steven Garrett

Steven Garrett is a 29-year-old self proclaimed “foodie” and “geek.” He is a professional food blogger whose blog, renegadekosher.com, has won several blogging awards, including Blogathon’s Best Blog in 2006. He’s been spotlighted on Bloghop.com, and he won “Best Recipe December 2006″ from Chefclub.net.

He is a practicing Jew in the Conservative Judaism movement. He is a registered Libertarian, politically speaking, and prides himself on always looking at life with a humorous slant, which may have come from the years he spent as a struggling professional stand-up comic.

Chuck Hartley

Charles Hartley has been living and practicing law in San Diego County since 2001. In a previous career, he worked as a special agent with the Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service, completing assignments in Washington, DC; La Paz, Bolivia; and Lome, Togo.

Though he is currently registered to vote as a Republican, his politics trend toward Libertarian. He believes in civil liberties and individual responsibility, restoration of habeas corpus for everyone, and has a long-held interest in coastal access issues that tries to balance his love of going to the beach with an aspiration to someday own a home on the beach.

Chris McConnell

Chris McConnell was born into an Air Force family in Idaho, but left the state when he was still a toddler. His family relocated more than 20 times to Air Force bases across the country.

Growing up, Chris dreamed of being a Supreme Court justice. There are no outward signs of progress toward this dream, he now says. He has been a student, a bookseller, a teacher, a waiter, a valet, unemployed, a plumber’s assistant and a freelance writer in San Diego.

Chris has been surfing around San Diego since he went to UCSD in the 1990s. Chris says thanks to his late “Grammy’s” wise and soulful decision to move to La Jolla in the 1960s, San Diego is one of the few places Chris has called home.

Alma Sove

Alma Sove has spent most of her life in San Diego and knows the aches and pains of living in a once-sleepy beach town during its inevitable expansion. She has lived everywhere from Encanto to Lakeside, from Clairemont and Mission Beach to Hillcrest and City Heights, ever since her family moved from Northern California during Jerry Brown’s early tenure as governor.

Alma grew up in a household of painters, poets, and activists, attributing a sense of social justice to her Mexican-American family roots. Alma is currently attending Thomas Jefferson School of Law. Prior to law school she held a variety of jobs in retail, then transitioned into the travel industry as a flight attendant for Southwest Airlines. After earning her paralegal certificate from the University of San Diego, she worked for a short time as a legal assistant.

Candace Suerstedt

Candace Suerstedt has been a professional filmmaker for nearly 30 years. A member of the Directors Guild of America, she has been a production manager and assistant director on over 120 motion pictures and TV projects. Clients have included CBS, The Walt Disney Company, Discovery, PBS, NBC, Columbia, Paramount, Sony, and Universal Studios.

As the daughter of a Navy fighter pilot, Candace’s nomadic childhood gave her the opportunity to attend 19 different schools by the time she graduated from high school. As it did for many Navy juniors, Coronado became her surrogate hometown, where she now resides.

A political activist since her days at the University of California, Berkeley, she remains passionately involved in environmental and cultural reform. Her greatest political accomplishment is to have raised three formidable daughters who relentlessly question the world around them.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 at 10:45 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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