The Santa Margarita Water District in Orange County is one of many special districts in California that exist in a sort of twilight zone where public scrutiny is especially difficult. But it is the public's business just the same.
The district provides water and sewer service for 84,000 customers in the South Orange County communities of Coto de Caza and Rancho Santa Margarita and a part of Mission Viejo. Everyone should have it so good as the district's two top executives, General Manager Walter W. (Bill) Knitz and his assistant, Michael P. Lord, who over nine years ran up combined bills of more than $160,000 in fancy meals, pricey hotels, limos, first-class air fares and other perks.
The two also accepted more than $40,000 worth of gifts from contractors, bankers, developers and consultants. Lord says worry over whether the gifts to him were legal prompted him last year to reimburse his gift-givers to the tune of $11,100, though he offered no proof of having done so. But Lord and Knitz did not refrain from influencing decisions that may have benefited these companies--as state law requires if gifts total $250 or more a year.
The public agency's board didn't seem to mind what its managers were doing--until their expenses and gifts were about to be disclosed by The Times. Only then did board Chairman Don B. Schone comment, "Maybe we need to do some soul-searching."
