Water Official Amends Statement : Investigation: Santa Margarita District Assistant General Manager Michael Lord, who first reported no gifts in 1990, discloses receiving $930.

The assistant general manager of the Santa Margarita Water District, who first reported receiving no gifts from developers and consultants in 1990, has amended his economic interest statement for that year and disclosed $930 in gifts.

Michael P. Lord, under investigation by the Orange County district attorney’s office along with district General Manager W.W. (Bill) Knitz for taking gifts from consultants and contractors in excess of state-mandated limits, has claimed that the 1990 statement detailing gifts he received was lost.

The Times, however, obtained from the district’s general counsel a signed copy of Lord’s 1990 economic interest statement on which he had checked a box saying that there were no gifts to report.

In a March 20 letter to the general counsel, Fritz R. Stradling, Lord said that “having reviewed the prior filings, it has come to my attention the subject information was lost. Attached please find my attempt to recreate that filing.”

Accompanying the letter, which arrived at Stradling’s office Wednesday, was a list of gifts from 14 donors, including four engineering companies, three developers, three investment brokers, an architect, a bank, a consultant and Stradling’s law firm.

On top of the list was the engineering firm of Robert Bein, William Frost & Associates, which was said to have given Lord gifts valued at $250. Bein has given gifts valued at almost $14,000 to Lord and Knitz since 1987, including pheasant hunting and fishing trips, golf games and meals.

In the last four years alone, the company has received $13 million worth of work, including design work on a $138-million South County pipeline project.

Under California law, government officials must abstain from influencing decisions on any contracts sought by donors who have given them $250 or more during the previous 12 months. Lord and Knitz, both of whom sit on the water district’s finance committee, acknowledge making dozens of recommendations on payments involving engineering companies that have given them gifts, but say they have done no wrong.

Lord’s filing of the 1990 economic disclosure form, in which he lists no individual gift above $250, raises new questions about gift-giving in the water district. Documentation of the gifts was due April 1, 1991--two years ago--and Lord has been unable to explain why he filed an original form at the time listing no gifts.

His attorney, Gary M. Pohlson, who is representing Lord against possible charges that might come out of the district attorney’s investigation, said he had not studied the new disclosure forms and could not comment.

“He’s been filing these things for what, 10 or 11 years?” Pohlson said. “Why would he not file them this one year?”

Lord said he asked Stradling almost one year ago whether he should be accepting gifts valued at more than $250 from any single donor, and concluded that he should reimburse gift-givers for all amounts in excess of the state-mandated limit. The sums he said he refunded would total $11,100, but Lord has refused to provide proof that the donors were reimbursed.

“This letter (dated March 20) is to clarify current and past filings on my behalf,” Lord wrote.

In an interview with The Times on March 23, Lord was asked why he reported receiving no gifts in 1990 when he had reported getting thousands of dollars worth of gifts in 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1991. Subsequent to the interview, Lord also filed forms showing that he received gifts in 1992.

Lord said he was at a loss to explain why his 1990 economic interest statement reflected no gifts, because he had continued to accept free meals and other gratuities that year.

“No question we had business dinners and lunches with the same types of people that we traditionally do business with for the last several years,” he said.

Lord speculated that the unreported gifts might be the result of a secretary’s mistake.

If Lord had not accepted gifts exceeding the $250 limit in 1990, as he stated in his newly amended economic interest statement, it is unclear why he sought Stradling’s advice a year later in determining what he should accept. Lord’s attorney had no explanation Thursday.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the local chapter of Common Cause called on the district attorney’s office to expand its investigation of the Santa Margarita Water District to include other agencies in the county’s patchwork system of 38 water districts, which he said was “outmoded and inefficient, and no longer serves its original purpose, or the needs of a growing urban county.”

William R. Mitchell, the group’s chairman, was particularly critical of the Santa Margarita Water District, whose directors are elected not by ordinary voters but exclusively by landowners, whose votes are apportioned on the basis of their land’s assessed value.

That system, Mitchell said, “deprives those who pay for the water of any ability to control or supervise the expenditure of revenue. . . .”

Board members have defended their management of the district, and have temporarily suspended the spending authority of Knitz and Lord, except in the case of emergencies. They are still deciding whether to conduct an outside audit or to let the district attorney’s office handle all matters involving investigation.

Mitchell and civic activist Shirley L. Grindle have called for a countywide ban on gifts to government officials.

Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi said Thursday that his office will conduct “a very thorough investigation.” He declined further comment.