Organizers approach a deadline for a petition to recall Mary Ann Leffel from airport board.

Since her Dec. 6, 2021 vote on the Local Agency Formation Commission of Monterey County to all but deny the voter-approved public buyout of private water utility California American Water, Mary Ann Leffel has drawn the ire of the Monterey Peninsula’s pro-public water sect, sparking an organized effort to recall her from her elected office on the Monterey Peninsula Airport District.

The recall effort is led by the Committee to Defend Democracy – Recall Leffel. The campaign comes to an end this week as signed petitions are due to the Monterey County Elections Office on Saturday, July 16 to get the recall on the Nov. 8, 2022 ballot.

Leffel, the District 3 representative on the airport board, serves on the LAFCO board thanks to a vote by representatives from 43 special districts across the county. The petition aims to recall her from her Airport District seat, to which she is elected by the public.

A recall vote in November requires 2,434 signatures from eligible voters within the airport’s District 3 – equivalent to 20 percent of the 12,166 voters registered in the district. (District 3 covers all of Monterey and part of Pacific Grove.)

Larry Parrish, a board member of Public Water Now who helped organize the recall effort, says the group placed a self-imposed deadline of July 13 to stop collecting signatures and begin counting ahead of the county’s deadline. He declined to comment on whether he believes they will have enough signatures to force a recall vote.

“Anything I say would be purely speculative at this point,” Parrish says. Nancy Runyon, a spokesperson for the recall effort, did not return the Weekly’s requests for comment.

Leffel was elected to another four-year term on LAFCO in May; however, her term on the Airport District expires in 2024 and she has said she will not seek re-election. Once her Airport District term ends, so will her time on LAFCO. As for a potential recall, she says she is prepared to fight it.

“I will not lay down,” Leffel says. “I will fight to retain my seat and I’ll fight to do the best I can for my district.”