Board Takes on Sanitary District Merger Tonight

The issue that has been an underlying force in sanitary district politics in Southern Marin for several years rears its head in public tonight.

At a public hearing in the council chambers at San Rafael City Hall at 7 p.m., the Marin Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) is considering a proposal to within the (SASM) in half from six to three.

The hearing is the next step in an ongoing saga that dates back more than a half-decade and kicked into high gear after a pair of sewage spills in January 2008 sewage spills that cost SASM more than $1.5 million in fines.

The proposal (attached at right) drafted by LAFCO staffers calls for squeezing the Almonte, Alto and Homestead Valley sanitary districts, as well as the Richardson Bay Sanitary District, which cover Strawberry and part of Tiburon, into an as-yet-unnamed consolidated district.

The new district would have one representative on a SASM board, eliminating 15 sanitary board positions. But it doesn’t change the one-person representation of the City of Mill Valley and the , making the new SASM board a three-member panel.

The report said the agencies had made some “earnest and energetic efforts” to address the problems in the sewer system and its operations since the 2008 spills, which sent 3.4 million gallons of raw and partially treated sewage into Richardson Bay.

But “recent improvements in performance and reinvigorated efforts to improve facilities do not justify preservation of an obsolete government structure,” the staff report concluded, specifically citing the agency’s relatively small size at fewer than 30,000 customers.

The report focused on the lack of accountability after the 2008 spills, an issue that has by the Richardson Bay district against the City of Mill Valley. The accountability void, particularly with 30 elected board members and eight managers operating the existing sewer system, “dilutes responsibility and accountability for sewer service to the point of near inconsequence for single purpose sanitary district members,” the report stated.

The number of member agencies and boards has also suppressed public interest, according to the report, “because so little is at stake within each jurisdiction when that jurisdiction is responsible for only a small part of a small sewer system.”

The consolidation would immediately involve layoffs, but it merges some staff and eliminates positions through attrition. The cuts would save as much as $269,000, according to the report.

Consolidation has been a central issue at SASM for years. In addition to the U.S. Environmental Agency’s administrative order that called for an audit of the agency’s operations, a 2009 Marin County civil grand jury recommended merging all of the SASM agencies. Marin Assemblyman Jared Huffman’s bill  allowing LAFCO to force the agencies to consolidate passed later that year.

The 411: The Marin Local Agency Formation Commission considers a proposal to consolidate member agencies of the Sewerage Agency of Southern Marin at 7 p.m. in the council chambers at San Rafael City Hall at 1400 Fifth Ave. A 60-day public comment period follows the hearing, after which the commission makes a final decision.