Big Job on Tap : Conservation: Gerard McKay will help decide who gets more or less if L.A. rations water.

Gerard B. McKay planned to spend part of the weekend moving out of his Van Nuys office. That’s because over the next few months he will probably be moving into the lives of untold numbers of Los Angeles residents.

In McKay’s case, weather and ambition have combined to raise the quiet-spoken, low-key, optimistic 43-year-old from safe obscurity to what could be an incandescent spot on the parched Southern California landscape.

As the city girds for the drought war of 1990, McKay has been chosen by the Department of Water and Power to head a sort of court of appeals on water use.

“It’s definitely more high-profile than any job I’ve had in the past,” McKay said, noting he was warned in job interviews that the position could make him a public target. “But it comes with the territory. My concern is not going to be the profile but implementing and doing the job and if that comes with it, so be it . . . I’m going into this job with my eyes wide open.”

McKay, a career civil servant, formally holds the new title of water conservation control group coordinator. For the average Los Angeles resident, that means McKay could become an abominable “no” man if the City Council approves Mayor Bradley’s proposal for water conservation. The mayor wants the city to reduce by 10% the amount of water consumed from predrought 1986 levels.

Approval of Bradley’s plan seems all but certain. At least 13 of 15 city council members have said they support the proposal. Last week, a key city council committee endorsed the proposal, made as the region faces a possible fifth straight year of drought in 1991. In fact, city officials and mayoral aides have said worry over next year’s water supply prompted the rationing plan, more than fears of shortages this summer.

In his new position, McKay will head a group that decides if water customers will be granted an “adjustment” from these water-use restrictions.

McKay, previously manager of DWP’s 15 branch offices, doesn’t see himself as a Draconian bureaucrat. In an interview, he repeatedly stressed that DWP will work with customers on determining their water allotments. He also shied away from the word rationing, prefering the term reduction.

“No. 1, I don’t expect to be unpopular (in my new job). I feel I’m doing a service,” McKay said at the end of a day spent scouting office locations for his new command. “Our goal and our purpose is not to punish the customer. Our goal is to work with them.”

A native of St. Louis, McKay’s family moved here when he was 11. He began work at DWP 19 years ago as a temporary employee and moved into management ranks four years ago. Perhaps tellingly, he has a degree in political science from Cal State L.A.

“We are there to hear the appeals on the unique situations from customers who for whatever reason have some type of situation they feel should give them an adjustment,” he explained. “The bottom line is we’re looking to see what your unique situation is. Probably the most common (reason for an appeal) will be that you don’t live where you did in 1986 . . .Are there more children, more members of the household? Has there been a swimming pool added? Has there been additional landscaping? . . . Once we’ve got that (information) we can make the appropriate adjustment.”

As envisioned by McKay, customers seeking an exemption will receive a form to state the reasons for their appeal; that form will be processed by his staff.

Exemptions will also be granted to employers if cuts would result in unemployment or if employment or output has gone up at a business facility.

And McKay emphasized that he’s in the same boat as everybody else. “ . . . I’m a citizen rate-payer of Los Angeles and I’m subject to this as well.” He noted that he, his wife and two children have begun taking steps to conserve water in their own home.

Mixing authority with diplomacy, McKay added, “I don’t want to say, every one come line up and get your adjustment. But if you have reasonable requests that can be verified by us without any major problem, we’re there to do that. We’re not there to make it harsh on any individual, organization or area.”

McKay’s group is part of a two-pronged strategy by the department to combat the drought. A so-called “drought buster” program, headed by another DWP manager, will have department employees scouring the city for violations such as hosing off sidewalks.

But McKay stressed that most violators will have little to fear from the city’s water police: “If (customers are) hosing off the sidewalk, they’ll inform them that it is a violation. They’ll work with them, give them conservation tips, and hopefully that will resolve the situation.”

McKay’s apparently ingrained optimism makes him see proposed cutbacks as an opportunity rather than a dreaded modification of the Southern California lifestyle. “We don’t know what will happen in the following year or years, so isn’t it better now to take steps to conserve our water supplies so that we don’t have to go into more severe remedies?”

When the rationing proposal was announced earlier this month, officials said customers should seek an exemption only after they exceed their allotments.

But McKay senses that adoption of the rationing ordinance will leave some people as itchy as a week without a shower: “We’ll probably be getting appeals from customers before they even have received their first bill.”

McKay found another bright side in the city’s last confrontation with a water shortage in the late 1970s.

Then, he said, 88% of the department’s customers reduced their water use without resorting to an appeal. In 1977-78, McKay said some 73,000 residential customers appealed for exemptions. This time around, city water officials predict that about 100,000 of 650,000 customers will seek exemptions.

Under Bradley’s proposed plan, customers who do not reduce water use by 10% or do not receive an exemption will get stiff fines in the form of surcharges to their water bills.

Perhaps predictably, McKay thinks most customers will have a relatively easy time cutting water use--and that most will be cooperate with DWP. “My view and past experience is that most customers understand that we have a drought,” he said.

Water customers who have installed low-flow shower heads and adopted other measures advocated by the department over the last couple of years may already have achieved substantial reductions, he added.

“Many people have probably gotten a big head start and don’t even know it because if they’ve employed those measures, they’re already well on their way to reduction,” he said.

According to McKay, the average Los Angeles residential water customer uses 18 “billing units”--each equaling about 748 gallons--of water per month. When the water ordinance is enacted, customers’ bills will tell them the amount of water they’re allowed to use.

Some customers, McKay conceded, will be shocked by the information.

“Many customers when they look at (it) will say ‘Can I do that? What we encourage is that they start attempting right there to conserve and see how they do,” he said. “Now, when the next bill comes along, compare that and see what you actually used and if there’s a problem or it looks like a need for an appeal, then contact us.”

At the moment, however, all of this is ahead of the game.

McKay has not decided where to locate his group and has not hired or drafted a single staff member, although the plans call for him to employ 25 people.

In fact, he learned that he had gotten the job, which he described as “a major promotion,” only last Wednesday.

Until then, McKay said he had been wracked by self-doubt over his performance in interviews for the slot. On the other hand, his family was a faithful cheering section.

“You have your doubts, reliving that interview process over and over and over and wondering if you handled it right,” he recalled. His family, was “more confident than I was. They were pleased. They don’t look forward to the long hours but they understand.”