The perceived divide between the Salinas Valley and Monterey Peninsula is on display in the most unlikely of places.

David Schmalz here, with some thoughts about the oft-used term “Lettuce Curtain,” a metaphor for the perceived divide between the interests of the Salinas Valley and the Monterey Peninsula. 

The Lettuce Curtain, in my view, is only as real as people want it to be—it’s a human construct that is an intellectually lazy way to describe two constituencies that occasionally—but rarely—have competing interests.

Usually, those competing interests—which are often more perceived than real—revolve around tensions related to water. The lower Salinas Valley Basin is critically overdrafted, as growers have pumped unhindered for decades, and still do, despite the relentless intrusion of seawater into the aquifers. 

Meanwhile, in the Cal Am service area on the Peninsula, property owners haven’t been able to set new water meters—or upsize existing ones—since the state imposed a cease-and-desist order (CDO) against Cal Am in 2009 for the private utility’s illegal overpumping of the Carmel River. This, in turn, has exacerbated the Peninsula’s housing crisis. 

Yet even now that Cal Am is within its legal pumping limit, the CDO remains in place until the State Water Board rules on whether to lift it after the expansion of the Pure Monterey Water recycled water project comes online this year, adding another 2,250 acre-feet annually to the Peninsula’s portfolio, which will exceed 12,000—plenty of water, indefinitely, as the last water year’s demand was less than 9,000 acre-feet. 

Over the past few years, this dynamic has been on full display in the most unlikely of places—the board of the Local Agency Formation Commission of Monterey County, aka LAFCO, a usually obscure agency that deals with issues like annexations and special districts. 

But in the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District’s effort to buy out Cal Am’s local service area in the wake of Measure J, which Peninsula voters approved in 2018 for that very purpose, MPWMD went to LAFCO in 2021 to ask for the power to do so. 

In 2021, the board voted 5-2 to deny MPWMD’s application; the district sued over the decision and prevailed in October 2023. Both Cal Am and LAFCO have appealed that ruling, but since September of last year, have received multiple extensions to file their opening briefs, which are now due Feb. 20. 

During that 2021 LAFCO hearing, Soledad Mayor Anna Velazquez was serving as a non-voting alternate, and was the only board member from the Salinas Valley who spoke up on the Peninsula’s behalf, clearly having done the homework and understanding it would help the Peninsula, and not hurt the Valley. 

Fast forward to last Friday, Feb. 7, at the El Gabilan Library in Salinas, when the City Selection Committee, which is made up of the county’s 12 mayors, voted on who to appoint to a LAFCO board seat vacated by the retirement of former Salinas mayor Kimbley Craig. The race was between Velazquez and newly elected Salinas Mayor Dennis Donohue. 

King City Mayor Mike LeBarre said that the committee had always “made sure the land use policy by LAFCO is fair to all of us. I really hope we can move past this, keep the balance we have in place.”

How was that 2021 denial by the LAFCO board fair to the Peninsula? 

A motion to elect Velazquez failed 5-7. Most Salinas Valley mayors (except Velazquez) supported Donohue, and Peninsula mayors Dale Byrne from Carmel, Scott Donaldson from Del Rey Oaks and Mary Ann Carbone of Sand City joined them. Donohue won in a landslide. 

Besides water, the next LAFCO board will likely decide on a range of topics that matter to the county as a whole, not just the Valley or the Peninsula. (These include a proposed annexation for the City of Gonzales for purposes of the Vista Lucia development, with 3,498 residential units.)

Maybe it’s time to change the way we think about the Lettuce Curtain—it’s got bad vibes—because here’s the thing about curtains: you can open them.