Cayucos Sanitary District planning to rehire out-of-state manager

March 19, 2025

OPINION by JULIE TACKER

After months of closed door meetings, the Cayucos Sanitary District has finally reached a new agreement with its out-of-state general manager. Rick Koon moved out of state last fall and had been working remotely for several months before the community was made aware.

On March 20, the board will consider a six-month contract for Koon for $98,429, with ten days vacation pay. He will be required to work a minimum of 30 hours per week, and shall submit time sheets documenting the hours worked.

Yet, the deal only requires Koon to appear in Cayucos three days a month during monthly meetings. So, for 18 days of in-person work, Koon will receive nearly $100,000 for six months.

Koon will need to pay for his travel expenses, including flights, lodging, rental car and meals.

For professional development, the district will pay for travel and meals for meetings and functions, “to foster professional development or represent the district.” What a relief this must be to the ratepayers of Cayucos (sarcasm intended).

Among his duties, Koon is to “exercise direct supervision of the chief plant operator, lead collections operator, and the administrative services and accounting managers, and shall plan and administer the work of professional, technical operational, maintenance and support staff, typically through subordinate levels of supervision.”

I don’t know how “direct supervision” can be direct if he’s not there to witness workplace camaraderie, employee morale and work product quality. What does the district do in an emergency with him 800 miles away?

A benchmark for me to the quality of a general manager is how he or she manages their own contract. I recall in late 2019, Koon tried to become an employee with the district after years of performing general manager services as an independent contractor.

California law requires that these contracts be approved in a regular meeting. Due to his own failures, he missed deadlines for agenda’s where his contract could be lawfully considered and it wasn’t until the end of Feb. 2020

He finally got the dream contract for five years with his starting pay at $216,000. Early this year, as the contract end approached, again Koon missed the deadlines for regular agenda consideration and his contract expired on Feb. 28.

As a result, the district had to terminate him, remove him from any responsibility and appoint an acting general manager from within.

For the last several weeks, the district has been operating just fine without Koon. In fact, their acting general manager secured a $10,000 grant and will be representing the district in front of the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) this Thursday for two service area annexations.

The acting general manager will receive a stipend (unknown amount) for her extra work including at Thursday’s meeting. In my opinion, she deserves more than Koon, because she’s actually been on the job.

The sleepy little town of Cayucos is asleep all right. This agreement is an insult to its ratepayers. Koon should have been terminated the day he left his staff high and dry, and continued to bill the ratepayers in his absence.

I encourage Cayucos ratepayers to attend Thursday’s meeting or write letters to the board voicing their concerns.