About Cambria

Choosing a  Replacement Commissioner

This month the couple of dozen special districts in the County will vote for one of four candidates to fill the LAFCO (Local Agency Formation Commission) seat left open upon the retirement of the Oceano CSD director at the end of December 2009. Each county in California has a LAFCo who mission it is to ensure orderly development and efficient provision of services, including annexations and applications for citihood.

The Candidates and Incumbents:

The four candidates are Ed Eby (Director, Nipomo CSD); Brian Kreowski (Commissioner, Port of San Luis Harbor District); Kristi Jenkins (Trustee, CCHD) and Muril Clift (Director, CCSD). With two possible winners, Cambria has an even chance of getting representation on LAFCo this time around. Supervisor Gibson is on the LAFCo board, but he is the only one from the north coast currently there. (other commissioners:  Duane Picanco City Member, City of Paso Robles; Richard Roberts Public Member; Katcho Achadjian, County Board Member, District 4 Supervisor; David L. Brooks Special District Member, Templeton Community Services District; Bruce Gibson County Board Member, District 2 Supervisor; Allen Settle City Member, City of San Luis Obispo, Alternate Commissioners Ed Eby, Tom Murray, James R. Patterson, Kris Vardas.

Who Elects the LAFCo Commissioner?

There are three special district boards in this area that have a vote on who will fill the special district seat: Cambria Community Services District(CCSD), Cambria Community Healthcare District(CCHD), and the Cambria Cemetery District. At this week’s CCHD meeting, a divided board decided to not vote for any of the candidates after rejecting suggestions of Eby (first) and Clift (second) both 3 to 2. The discussion began with Trustee Jenkins essentially pulling her name from consideration, explaining she felt there were at least two candidates better qualified for  the position. Trustee Fratto then nominated Eby, which Trustee Lemming seconded and both voted to approve. Trustee Bates and Jenkins voted “no” immediately and Trustee Headding voted no, after some consideration, to break the tie. Then Trustee Gates moved support of Muril Clift, which ws seconded by Trustee Jenkins. There was no hesitation from the three “no” votes and when no one else was suggested, the final action of non-action was taken.

What This Means

I am not inside the minds of the CCHD trustees, but Muril Clift’s stunt last year (packing a CCHD meeting with folks upset about the ALS equipment and other issues) seems to have left a mark on the trustees, and not in a good way. Rather than using their vote to support Cambria on LAFCo, the CCHD  seems to prefer to hold a grudge. Three of these Trustees are up for election in November 2010. Are they serving the community in a way that you support?

In a move that was expected, the Local Agency Formation Commission approved the CCSD’s Municipal Services Review (MSR). I was in SLO Thursday morning for the meeting, along with Jerry McKinnon, Director Peter Chaldecott, President Joan Cobin and General Manager Tammy Rudock. Sitting in the Board of Supervisor’s Chambers, there were six commissioners (including Mayor Allen Settle, and Supervisors Gibson and Achadjian), the Commission Clerk(Donna Bloyd), the Executive Director (Paul Hood), Legal Council (Ray Biering) and the Deputy Executive Director (David Church).

The meeting moved along swiftly and the MSR was being considered by 9:30 or so. All the Commissioners had copies of the final MSR and the public comments submitted during the comment period. After a brief presentation by David Church, comments by Directors Cobin and Chaldecott, Ms. Rudock, Jerry McKinnon and me, a brief statement by Supervisor Gibson and some questions, the Commission unanimously approved the MSR. Download the LAFCO documents here. Download the LAFCO documents here.

Unless you are a government groupie or other flavor of slightly unbalanced person, you’re probably already nodding off. So let me cut to the chase…

Why should Cambrians care about the MSR? (Or what did LAFCO ever do for me?)

• The MSR a useful “biography” of the CCSD and the services it provides. LAFCO is an experience author of these kinds of biographies and can explain issues that are often complex and overlapping in a straightforward, comprehensible way. The Municipal Services Review is a great place to learn the basics about your local government agency. Call it CCSD 101: enough detail to be useful, not so much you get overwhelmed. It can point you in the right direction when you want to get more in depth information. (AboutCambria.com is one of the resources noted in the references section of the MSR.)
• Policy decisions and Board actions are not directly reviewed, nor is it part of LAFCO’s mission to judge whether the Board’s policies are appropriate or correct. While LAFCO includes statements (called “determinations”) in the MSR, the purpose of it is to gather information and compile it into a useful overview that might need to be used later. An MSR does not explicitly say the CCSD is “doing a good job” or is “doing poorly”, although a reader might infer one or the other based on a complete reading of the MSR and their own knowledge and views of the community. Actually, after participating in the process as a private citizen, ” municipal services overview” would be more accurate a description than “municipal services review”.
• LAFCO accepts the documentation and information it receives as correct and valid. Limits on time and money make independent evaluation of the various content of those documents not only unrealistic, but next to impossible. If there is any weak point in the process, this is it. LAFCO makes the assumption that the Board has evaluated the information and found it to be correct and reliable.

So what now? Unless someone makes an application to LAFCO to change the CCSD’s sphere of influence or to consolidate the CCSD and CCHD or change the services provided by the CCSD, we won’t hear from LAFCO until the next Municipal Services Review – which are supposed to be completed about every five years.

Read more about LAFCO and what it does visit  this post from November:  More About LAFCO or visit the SLOLAFCO website.

Tomorrow at 9:00am in the San Luis Obispo Board of Supervisors Chamber LAFCO staff will present their review of the CCSD to the Commission. The Draft MSR was recently presented to the CCSD. The version that will be presented tomorrow has a few changes and the comments from a few interested parties. You can read the draft version with the comments I submitted by downloading it here.
The LAFCO staff’s responses to my comments will be included in the document presented tomorrow. If you are a government agency groupie and Cambrian, this will be the only place to be tomorrow from 9-10am.

Then look to AboutCambria.com for a report about the meeting!

About a month ago, San Luis Obispo Local Agency Formation Commission (SLOLAFCo) issued a draft of the Municipal Services Review (MSR) for the Cambria Community Services District (CCSD). Friday July 11, 2008 is the deadline for submitting written comments is this Friday at 5pm. There is also a public hearing planned, at which the commission will likely certify the review. The hearing is July 31 at 9am in the SLO Board of Supervisors’ Chamber. (Both of these are noted in the AboutCambria.com Datebook.)

The draft already has some public input included. Click here to read the letter already included in the draft review.

I’m working on my comments and will post then in the next day or two. In the meantime: Download the Municipal Services Review Draft from the SLOLAFCo website.

The regular meeting of the North Coast Advisory Council (NCAC) Land Use and Special Projects committee will include consideration and discussion of San Luis Obispo’s Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCo) and how it may relate to the NCAC’s mission and focus on matters relative to areas of direct county supervision.

Sound like fun yet? Here’s the backstory, in brief: At the November meeting of the NCAC, a local resident spoke during public comment and asked that the NCAC “look into” the LAFCo mandate to perform a Municipal Services Review of the Cambria Community Services District every five years. As part of the Cortese-Knox-Hertzberg Local Government Act of 2000, each LAFCo in the state was to perform a Municipal Services Review (MSR) of each of the agencies in its district. These MSRs were to be completed by January 1, 2008. SLO LAFCo has not looked at the CCSD yet.

Most NCAC members (like many county residents) were not aware of LAFCo or its purpose. Chair John Lamb asked that the Land Use and Special Projects Committee gather information and come back to the January meeting with an opinion as to whether this was even within the scope of NCAC’s mission. The main thrust of the discussion at the committee meeting is likely to focus on this question. The committee will report to the entire council and those in attendance at the January 16 NCAC meeting.

I plan to attend to committee meeting on Monday at 7pm at the Rabobank. Anyone is welcome to attend the committee meeting, though it will be much more crucial to have a show of support/force at the full NCAC council meeting (January 16th at 7pm), which is when NCAC will have a discussion and vote on their course of action.

What’s the big deal? Why should we push for a Municipal Services Review of CCSD right now and what the heck does it involve? Stay tuned for a post answering those questions in the next few days.

For information about the committee meeting, contact Amanda Rice or R. Craig Smith. Learn about LAFCos from the CALAFCo website or the SLO LAFCo website. Learn more about the North Coast Advisory Council at their website.