Strawberry Recreation District rejects grand jury’s term-limit recommendation

Strawberry Recreation District board members can serve term after term without limit — Chair Peter Teese is in his fourth — and the board voted unanimously Aug. 18 to keep it that way. It rejected a Marin County civil grand jury recommendation that special districts cap members at two consecutive four-year terms by June 1, 2027.

Teese has served since December 2010, elected without opposition in 2014, 2018 and 2022. He is on the Nov. 3 ballot for a fifth term.

The other four members all joined since 2022. Marin County supervisors appointed Sohrab Saghezchi in December 2022, after no one filed for the seat. Christian Michael was appointed in April 2024 and won a four-year term that November. Sarah Waterfield won a two-year seat the same month. And the board appointed Doug Twillman in September 2025 to finish the term of Cale Nichols, who resigned after moving out of state.

The vote closes out the district’s response to “Better Service at Lower Cost,” the grand jury’s June 11 report on consolidating Marin’s special districts. The board rejected the rest of the report 4-0 on July 14, with Waterfield absent, arguing a fee-supported recreation district has little in common with the fire and sanitary agencies the grand jury studied, but set the term-limit recommendation aside for further review.

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