Date of Award

Fall 9-10-2020

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Public Administration (MPA)

Abstract

Competition for water resources, as well as the rights to control and sell water resources, have a long history in the state of California. Public managers from multiple levels of governance have been instrumental in regulating this competition since before statehood, and are caught between often adversarial public and private interests when called upon to make decisions that are in everyone’s best interests. This capstone is about an ongoing case in the small city of Marina, on the Monterey Bay, which highlights this very situation. Using a grounded theory approach, I gathered primary data from key informant interviews, evaluated video recordings of committee meetings, compared and contrasted against precedent found via literature review, and synthesized these multiple data sources with the goal of better understanding the cause of conflicts and how they were resolved or not resolved based on three dimensions of intergovernmental relations: intergovernmental cooperation, intergovernmental communication, and intergovernmental resolutions. The research concludes with data-driven recommendations as calls to action.

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