Conroy Blasts Water District Voting : Legislation: Assemblyman proposes law for a ‘one-man, one-vote’ balloting system that gives small users an equal say in Santa Margarita elections.

Calling it the “South Africa” of water districts, Assemblyman Mickey Conroy (R-Orange) said Friday that he will introduce emergency legislation to restructure voters’ rights within the troubled Santa Margarita Water District.

The water district is currently run by directors who are not elected on a “one-man, one-vote” rule. Instead, under rules governing certain types of water districts, the Santa Margarita district allows landowners one vote for every dollar of assessed land. That means that a homeowner with $100,000 worth of land is entitled to cast 100,000 votes.

Conroy said the system ensures that board members are more accountable to big developers than the district’s 26,500 ratepayers, many of whom are angry over disclosures that the top two managers there may have incurred tens of thousands of dollars in questionable expenses.

Even South Africa is moving away from its apartheid system toward “one-man, one-vote,” Conroy told reporters at a news conference Friday at the county registrar of voters office in Santa Ana. “If it’s good enough for South Africa, it’s good enough for the Santa Margarita Water District.”

The FBI and Orange County district attorney’s office are jointly investigating General Manager Walter W. (Bill) Knitz and his deputy, Michael P. Lord, on allegations that they may have accepted gifts from contractors in excess of state limits.

Both men, who were suspended last week with pay, have denied the allegations.

On Friday, the district’s board extended the suspension of Knitz and Lord for another 30 days and announced that it has begun its own investigation. Neither man accepted the board’s invitation to appeal its decision.

Santa Margarita district Chairman Don B. Schone issued a statement Friday, saying that the water district’s board supports Conroy’s bill “in concept.”

“The amended bill would begin the process of creating a one-man, one-vote district,” Schone wrote. “However, we want to work with Assemblyman Conroy on the specific language as it applies to this district.”

Conroy, whose office has been flooded with telephone calls from angry ratepayers, said he did not bother to ask Santa Margarita district officials for their feelings about the proposed legislation.

“What could they possibly say? How could they defend it?” Conroy said.

Conroy vowed to have the new legislation on Gov. Pete Wilson’s desk by June.

The legislation would expand the water district’s board of directors from five to seven seats and limit terms to four years. Conroy hopes to have the legislation in place soon enough to allow customers in Coto de Caza and Rancho Santa Margarita and portions of Mission Viejo to elect Santa Margarita boaard members in a general election in November, 1994.

“This is just great,” said Milt Jacobson, a civic activist who has lived in Mission Viejo for 15 years. “I think Mickey Conroy is to be congratulated for his foresight and wisdom, and I’m very proud of him.”

Jacobson had recently tried to get the district converted from a landowner district to residential voting district and even consulted an attorney who specializes in such cases. He said the attorney warned him that the concept of a landowner district had been upheld in recent court rulings.

“I was told it was perfectly legal,” Jacobson said. “That’s when I gave up all attempts to do anything else.”

The Los Alisos Water District, which serves the Lake Forest area, is the only other “landowner voting” water district in Orange County. Voter turnout in either district is all but meaningless, Conroy said.

Conroy said the main target of his bill is Santa Margarita because his Assembly district includes most of that water district. But he said he will amend the legislation to also make Los Alisos a “resident voting district” if there is a demand to do so.

Michael P. Bray, controller of the Los Alisos Water District, declined to comment on the proposed legislation.

During the last election for the Santa Margarita district’s board in 1987, there were 13,248 individual or group property owners eligible to cast a ballot, according to Conroy’s office. Those ballots represented 1.4 billion votes, based on the landholdings of registrants.

As a result, the three largest landowners, the Santa Margarita Co., the Mission Viejo Co. and Coto de Caza Ltd. cast a total of 140.1 million votes, said Jim Bieber, Conroy’s legislative aide.

Conroy said such a system is a holdover from the days when ranchers and farmers owned huge parcels of land. But the same system today, Conroy said, makes it impossible for the typical homeowner with a small piece of property to have any impact.

“We need to expand the board and give it back to the ratepayers,” he said.

Times staff writer Mark Platte contributed to this report.