FEELING AT HOME: There’s a retirement dinner...

FEELING AT HOME: There’s a retirement dinner tonight for Walter W. (Bill) Knitz, who left as Santa Margarita Water District general manager after disclosures that he and his assistant had accepted excessive gifts and spent lavishly, such as at restaurants like La Ferme in Mission Viejo. So where is his retirement bash? At La Ferme. It’s $30 per person, partly to pay for a gift for him. . . . “The man has done a lot for water in Orange County,” says one water official. “Besides, everyone picks up his own tab.”

HERE THEY ARE: After months of being a front office without a team, the Mighty Ducks put on their game face Thursday, selecting their first 24 players in the National Hockey League’s expansion draft (C1). . . . Three should be familiar here: goaltender Glenn Healy (the Ducks’ second pick from the N.Y. Islanders) played with the L.A. Kings from 1985 to 1989, and left wing Lonnie Loach and right wing Jim Thomson were both on the Kings’ playoff roster this past season.

STRONG SECOND: The county’s Black Chamber of Commerce President Aaron Lovejoy was a little embarrassed that he incorrectly wrote guests that Hillary Rodham Clinton would be keynote speaker at a chamber dinner tonight in Anaheim. He did well scrambling for a last-minute replacement though: Congressional Black Caucus chairman Kweisi Mfume, above, has agreed to speak. Two other African-American congressmen, Benny Thompson and Eva Clayton, have also RSVP’d.

DIAL-A-GENERAL: When Supervisor Thomas F. Riley saw a consumer’s ideas on library funding in the newspaper, it made him wonder how he could find out about other good suggestions that constituents may have. . . . So the general has proposed that the county set up an 800 telephone number and a fax number for people to submit ideas. “Government should give every opportunity to our constituency to share their ideas,” he says. But Riley says he doesn’t want a complaint line--somehow he plans to restrict it to constructive thoughts.