24 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY JULY 17-23, 2025 www.montereycountynow.com people aren’t stepping up to do it.” The job requires a fair amount of training and getting used to working within public meeting laws, she says: “You want to make sure you’re doing it right.” Besides staffing and finding qualified volunteers, there are other challenges, McCormick says. The cost of building infrastructure keeps going up, as do labor costs. Districts may struggle to pay competitive wages to attract professional staff, especially in regions where the cost of living is high. Conversely, some past compensation packages have come under scrutiny for being too high. At Salinas Valley Health, when former CEO Sam Downing stepped down in 2011, he received a controversial $3.9 million supplemental package in addition to a $150,000 annual pension plan. His salary when he left was $668,000 a year. A state auditor later ruled the package was within industry standards. An MPRPD general manager back in 2010 drew scrutiny for being one of the highest paid in the state at $306,000 annually—the Los Angeles Times used it as an example of inflated government salaries. The next GM was paid $154,500. With all the challenges faced by districts, it’s made some question if there needs to be fewer districts, with some possibly merging, either joining existing community services districts that provide a set of services—for example the Pebble Beach Community Services District, which oversees fire, wastewater collection and treatment, garbage and other services—or merging with another similar district. Merging could mean greater efficiencies and savings by sharing staffing and other resources, Lee says. Leaders need to ask themselves if they are being good stewards of tax dollars. “We owe it to the taxpayers,” Lee says. McKenna offers a scenario where all the county’s cemetery districts— there are eight—merge into one, although she doesn’t see any new consolidations in Monterey County anytime soon. Soon after she took over at LAFCO, there were some consolidations of fire districts and the Castroville Community Services District, formerly the Castroville Water District, merged with a county services area to handle water, sewers, street lighting, parks and other services. (A county services area is similar to a special district but is governed by the Board of Supervisors and is considered dependent on the county, while special districts are independent; Monterey County has about 40 CSAs.) “The easy consolidations have been done and the harder consolidations have been done. Now it’s down to the nearly impossible consolidations, primarily because of funding issues that are systemic to local governments,” McKenna says. “It’s very difficult to have a financially sustainable district take over operations for a special district that is struggling.” It’s why LAFCO continues to look for other ways to support new solutions for districts, like encouraging sharing of staff or boards. “We look for small steps forward to help these special districts,” McKenna says. “We all want them to succeed and continue to deliver essential services to their communities.” Not all districts are struggling. Larger districts like Pebble Beach’s, the Monterey County Regional Fire District, Salinas Valley Health and Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District have been stable and continue to thrive, even in the face of occasional upsets. The park district, for example, survived conflict with its last general manager, Rafael Payan, who resigned in the face of being placed on administrative leave. The district board hired a new manager, Eric Morgan, on July 2. AIRPORT DISTRICT Monterey Peninsula Airport CEMETERY DISTRICTS Castroville, Cholame, Gonzales, Greenfield, King City, San Ardo, San Lucas, Soledad COMMUNITY SERVICES DISTRICTS Castroville, Pajaro/Sunny Mesa, Pebble Beach, Santa Lucia, Spreckels, Ocean View Plaza (in Monterey) FIRE PROTECTION DISTRICTS Aromas Tri-County, Cachagua, Carmel Highlands, Cypress, Gonzales Rural, Greenfield, MissionSoledad Rural, North County, Monterey County Regional, South Monterey County HARBOR DISTRICT Moss Landing HEALTH CARE DISTRICTS Salinas Valley Health, Soledad Community MEMORIAL (VETERANS) DISTRICTS Greenfield, Spreckels MOSQUITO ABATEMENT DISTRICT Monterey County RECREATION AND PARK DISTRICTS Carmel Valley, North County, Greenfield Recreation, Monterey Peninsula Regional Park, Soledad-Mission Recreation RESOURCE CONSERVATION DISTRICT Resource Conservation District of Monterey County SOLID WASTE DISPOSAL DISTRICT ReGen Monterey WASTEWATER/ SANITARY DISTRICT Carmel Area WATER DISTRICTS Marina Coast, San Ardo, San Lucas Source: Local Agency Formation Commission Count Off There are 42 independent special districts within Monterey County, created by voter approval. They are governed by boards that are either elected by constituents or appointed by the Monterey County Board of Supervisors. Not covered in this story are the eight dependent special districts, connected to the county, a city, or another governmental entity. (Examples include the East Garrison Community Services District and Pajaro County Sanitation District.) There are also 40 county service areas managed by the county and five special districts that overlap boundaries with other counties, like the Aromas Water District, which overlaps Monterey and San Benito counties. Other jurisdictions that are not special districts include the 24 school districts in the county and joint powers authorities, including the Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments and Central Coast Community Energy (3CE). This shows just some of the district boundaries in Monterey County on an interactive map produced by the California Special Districts Association, available at csda.net/about-special-districts/map. CALIFORNIA SPECIAL DISTRICTS ASSOCIATION
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