Supervisor-elect Kate Daniels hires former Salinas Mayor Kimbley Craig as chief of staff.

The dust has settled from the November election, with the vote certified on Dec. 3—the same day new members of Salinas City Council were sworn in. And 10 days after she officially concluded her duties as mayor of Salinas, Kimbley Craig announced on Dec. 13 that she has a new job in local government come January: She will serve as chief of staff to Supervisor-elect Kate Daniels. 

Daniels, who won outright in a three-way race in the March primary, will be sworn in on Jan. 7 to represent District 5. She will succeed her former boss, Mary Adams, who is retiring and did not seek reelection.

The sprawling District 5 runs down the coast from Monterey to the county line, including Big Sur; it also includes Carmel Valley and the Highway 68 corridor. It includes many unincorporated communities with no city government, who rely on the County for direct services. 

"What I am hoping to accomplish is having the most responsive office," Daniels says. "How successful we are it correlated to how responsive we can be. Every district has its unique challenges, but three major wildfires can erupt at the same time, or we could have a piece of the highway fall into the ocean. It requires a certain type of responsiveness, from someone like Kimbley."

The two first met when they served in student government as students at Carmel High School, then both went on to serve in local government. Craig previously served two terms as a Salinas City Council member, then two as mayor. She ran unsuccessfully for a position as county supervisor for District 2 in 2022. 

She has long maintained that the demands of public service as a volunteer job pose a problem for encouraging people to run for public office. While working as a full-time mayor for the past four years, she has also held a full-time job as CEO of the Monterey County Business Council. 

She announced her resignation at an annual meeting of the Business Council on Dec. 13, echoing that message. "I have a very expensive hobby [of public service]," she said. "This allows me to do what I am passionate about full-time."

Craig led the Business Council for seven years, and said when she first took the reins, the organization was struggling and she stayed awake some nights worrying about how to make payroll. It has since stabilized and also expanded to manage the Small Business Development Center, developed the Leadership Monterey County program (which just graduated its sixth class), developed a supervisor speaker series bringing elected supervisors to address members of the business community, and more. 

Paul Farmer, who served for three years as the chief operations officer of the MCBC, will take over as CEO. 

Craig grew up in District 5 before moving to Salinas and developing a political career there. Daniels says one of the things she values about Craig is a get-it-done attitude, and she expects her chief of staff to be responsive to constituent concerns.

"I jumped into this with big goals," Daniels says. "I will not be able to address those if I am always responding to constituents. That is 99 percent of the role of a county supervisor—people call because they are stuck in some aspect of county bureaucracy, and they need help to get unstuck. I put the best team in place so I can also do the big stuff."