22 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY JULY 17-23, 2025 www.montereycountynow.com unincorporated community outside of Salinas. The Spreckels Community Services District and the Spreckels Veterans Memorial District share the same staff—just one way districts in smaller communities cope with the challenge of staffing. Despite the attempt at efficiency, the staff had fallen behind on state-required annual budget audits and trainings on ethics and harassment prevention. The districts’ staff blamed it on the death of a contracted auditor and a statewide shortage of auditing firms. “I don’t know having your auditor or financial person die has anything to do with the two mandatory trainings of ethics and harassment,” Leffel said. “To me, the way it was written [in the report], I was like, ‘Really? I don’t think we’re going to blame that on a finance person who’s a third party.’” LAFCO’s mission is to oversee the orderly formation of districts, their boundaries and authorizing new services. It also strives to preserve open space and agricultural land and discourage urban sprawl. LAFCO’s staff’s duties include conducting municipal service reviews, like the one the commissioners reviewed and approved on June 23. There are informal duties as well, McKenna says. “Some of our districts are struggling to meet all of the obligations that local governments have to live by in terms of budgets, audits, public access to meetings, public access to information and financial reporting requirements,” she says. The requirements may seem minor but they’re there to create transparency for constituents and make sure taxpayers’ money is being properly handled. Ethics and harassment trainings are meant to keep both employees and the district safe. “Some of our districts are quite small—that is they are lean, they have little if any staffing and lean budgets— so we also provide informal support to particularly those districts, and help them accomplish the minimum requirements needed to function, and to have them establish modern practices,” McKenna says. She prefers a soft touch with districts that are out of compliance with state regulations, rather than punishment. During the June 23 meeting she told impatient commissioners—who themselves have to follow the same regulations in their respective municipalities and districts—she would contact the Spreckels general manager and “encourage compliance much more quickly,” suggesting six months. That wasn’t good enough for Commissioner Ian Oglesby, mayor of Seaside. “My only concern is we should bring them up to speed as soon as possible,” he said. He couldn’t support six months, especially since they’d been out of compliance for much longer. “They’re responsible to their districts’ residents, right?” Oglesby agreed to McKenna’s suggestion that the district be compliant with the trainings by July 31. Several years ago, the Greenfield community was facing a dilemma. Two of its special districts—the recreation district and the cemetery district—saw multiple board members retire with no one interested in taking their place. The idea was floated to use the same set of people for both districts. Supported by Monterey County Supervisor Chris Lopez, responsible for appointing the board members, the board and county officials decided to try it out. Since 2020, the districts’ board meetings take place on the same night, the third Monday of each month. The Greenfield Cemetery District convenes at 5:30pm in Lions Hall, adjourns, then at 6:30pm the Greenfield Public Recreation District convenes. David Kong, chair of the board for both districts, says it’s working well. “The hard thing about that is we basically only have one full-time employee and a part-time employee,” Kong says. “You can’t get more lean and efficient in terms of government.” McKenna calls what began as an experiment in Greenfield a big step toward efficiency. “It’s hard to find willing and qualified residents who are willing to serve on these local government boards,” McKenna says. “What has occurred in the Greenfield area is a big help in the community.” Kathleen Lee, a longtime member of the Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District who currently serves as chair, puts an emphasis on what’s needed to be qualified, especially as governance becomes more technical and regulated. “There is an increasing level of sophistication needed that doesn’t always match the resources a special district has,” she says. “What you’ll see, especially in Monterey County, people end up serving for a long time because Top: The Moss Landing Harbor District is responsible for keeping the harbor running smoothly, including regular dredging to keep access into and out of the harbor clear. While the harbor is focused in one area near the mouth of Elkhorn Slough, the district boundaries go inland to ensure a large enough tax base. Below: Vincent Ferrante, vice chair of the harbor district board, formerly served as the board president for the California Special Districts Association and remains heavily involved in lobbying efforts at the state and national levels to bring the needs of the districts to lawmakers’ attention. DANIEL DREIFUSS DANIEL DREIFUSS
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