© Provided by Monterey HeraldLauren Lai
MONTEREY - Lauren Lai, Monterey's finance director who led the city through the worst of the fiscal collapse following the COVID-19 shutdown and who garnered praise for her work from staff, elected officials and City Hall watchers alike, is leaving for Milpitas on Monday.
Lai will be the finance director for Milpitas, a Silicon Valley city of roughly 80,000 that is seeing increased growth and urban development, making Lai's responsibility significantly greater than it was in Monterey.
But her tenure included one of the worst, if not the worst, financial crisis to hit Monterey. The COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent recession from the state-mandated shutdown cost the city roughly $32 million in revenue between March 2020 and June 2021. That was the scenario that landed on Lai's desk.
"This required big picture thinking and bold decision making," said Monterey City Manager Hans Uslar. "Lauren's understanding of our complex municipal financial system identified a path forward for the city as well as allowed us to invest almost $3 million of city funds into a grant program for small businesses as well as fund the single largest municipal rental assistance program within the tri-county area."
This kind of municipal governance - solving critical issues along with colleagues, elected officials and residents - is no cakewalk with the complexities involved in wrangling a financial system that is always in flux. Uslar attributes some of the success of recent tax measures to the trust the community, even watchdogs like the Monterey Taxpayers Association, has in Lai.
"Lauren has a gift for making complex financial issues understandable to everyone in a concise, competent manner," said Monterey Mayor Clyde Roberson. "Whether she is presenting to the City Council, neighborhoods, or business groups, she is appreciated and valued for her sincerity, credibility and collaboration. As council members said at Wednesday's meeting, she is a superstar."
Working in public governance is both a skill set and a calling for Lai. For her, working within the spectrum of democracy is meaningful as both a concept and as an integral part of her personal history.
Her father left southern China with his family shortly after the government of Chiang Kai-shek fell to Mao Zedong's Communist Party in 1950. The family landed in Vietnam, where they settled only to suffer what Lai describes as "another fallen country."
The family fled again and ended up in a refugee camp in Hong Kong. The conditions in the camp were poor and the food was rationed. The family endured those challenges for 10 months while waiting for sponsorship into the United States.
It was there that Lai saw first-hand the power of citizenry, when "courageous people led an upheaval that cast an international spotlight on the conditions. The camp was transformed," Lai said.
Now in the U.S., Lai grew up in the Bay Area and became a naturalized citizen. She earned her bachelor's degree from San Jose State University and went to work for Arthur Andersen, which at the time was among the "Big Five" accounting firms.
"With my immigrant background I found a passion for democracy," Lai said. "I feel that what I do in serving others upholds our democracy by allowing so many people to engage in government."
She returned to school and earned a master's degree in public affairs - a blend of administration and policy. She landed in Monterey in 2018 and immediately embraced what she saw as democracy in action.
"There was fantastic citizen engagement," she said. "There were 16 neighborhood associations and long-standing partnerships with business and military. It was a true sense of working together."
Those who worked with the city on a regular basis quickly built up respect for Lai. Esther Malkin, the founding director of Monterey County Renters United and a watchdog of city government, said the respect Lai generated was shared by all in the community.
"I can't think of a single city executive in recent memory that was as well-liked and respected by all of us who engage with staff regularly," Malkin said. "Lauren's expertise and ability to present data in a manner that was easily understood by all was exceptional. She will be missed very much in our city and lucky is the one that gets her."