MWD May Seek Aid in Lobbying : Water agency: The district is considering a private campaign to increase its clout in Sacramento. But the plan is already drawing fire.

The Metropolitan Water District is considering a plan to create and finance a private lobbying campaign to quietly bolster the giant water agency’s limited clout in the state capital.

The proposal, by a Los Angeles-based political consulting firm called the Dolphin Group, would cost $584,000 the first year.

The authors say the private lobbying campaign is a roundabout way for the water district to accomplish what it cannot do directly under state law, while critics see the plan as an unseemly one for a public agency.

Under the law, the district can supply legislators with information but cannot advocate a vote one way or another on a particular bill.

But under the plan presented last month to the district’s board, the agency would pay a private political consultant to build a separate “advocacy group” of local “opinion leaders” that could take direct positions and lobby on the district’s behalf.

The organization--to be called the Water Issues Constituency Network--would also give the appearance of being an independent, grass-roots voice to buttress the district’s position on issues, according to the plan.

As the authors of the proposal wrote, “In the final analysis, the perception of public pressure can and does move political mountains.”

District officials acknowledge that the plan is novel, and a spokesman for the state attorney general said recent court decisions may have cleared the way for this kind of arrangement. Lee Stitzenberger, president of the Dolphin Group, said it is “legitimate and very normal” for public agencies to lobby.

But Assemblyman Richard Katz, a critic of the district, said the plan “smacks of the Watergate plumbers” and is a ploy to “do with political muscle what they couldn’t do on the merits.”

Michael Josephson, president of the Joseph and Edna Josephson Institute for the Advancement of Ethics, said such a plan is “inherently shameful. . . . It would only be effective if it was deceptive. So at the outset it is badly motivated.”

Ellen Stern Harris, a former MWD board member who now heads the Fund for the Environment, said the plan shows that the water district has become a “legal and PR enterprise.”

The district has a 32-member Public Affairs division with an annual budget of more than $3 million. According to figures compiled by the state Fair Political Practices Commission, the agency spent an additional $1.14 million on lobbying state officials and agencies in 1988--second only to the California Manufacturers Assn., which spent $2.22 million.

MWD officials say the figures are bloated by inclusion of all expenses the agency incurs in representing itself before the state Water Quality Control Board.

Despite the expense, the MWD has lost some important political battles in recent years in the Legislature and at the ballot box as it sought to gain more water from Northern California sources.

To turn the tide, the MWD asked the Dolphin Group--best known for managing the campaigns of Gov. George Deukmejian and other conservative officials and causes--to create a new advocacy campaign.

Bob Gompers, an MWD spokesman, said the report was presented in a public meeting. “I don’t think we’re trying to hide anything,” he said, adding that no decision has yet been reached by the board.

Dolphin is seeking a $180,000 annual fee--plus expenses--for establishing the advocacy group. Other expenses--including subcontracting of “secondary consultants” to oversee 35 district chapters of the group--would bring the total first-year bill to $584,000.

Stitzenberger said about one-third of the funds would come from the district, with the balance to be raised from private sources.