Richardson Bay Sanitary rejects grand jury’s call to consolidate

Richardson Bay Sanitary District officials have rejected every finding and recommendation in a Marin civil grand jury report urging the county’s more than 50 special districts to explore consolidation, with the district’s manager saying the idea has already been studied at length and offers no savings.

The board of directors voted unanimously July 21 to approve the district’s response to the report, “Better Service at Lower Cost — Optimizing Essential Services for the Future of Marin,” released June 11. Named districts are legally required to respond by Sept. 11.

The grand jury found that the fragmented structure of Marin’s special districts creates duplication, uneven fees and service levels, staffing vulnerabilities and weaker long-term resilience across the county.

District officials countered that consolidation had previously been explored and that the report failed to account for districts that have already combined some operations or to recognize the financial challenges a merger would bring.

“By reading this, what I took from it was it was well-written and crafted, it has legs, but if you are a tiny organization that is completely understaffed and doesn’t have good leadership, it has merit,” board President Peter McIntosh said during the meeting. “For our district, I believe it does not have merit.”

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