Beleaguered Water District to Lose General Manager : Public works: John J. Schatz, only recently hired by Santa Margarita board, will go to work for a developer.

After less than two months as head of the troubled Santa Margarita Water District, General Manager John J. Schatz has announced he is taking a job with a Riverside County developer.

District board member Sean Barrett said Schatz made the announcement Wednesday in a closed session of the district’s board of directors and said the job offer was impossible to pass up.

“He disclosed that he had received an offer that he could not refuse, and he was embarrassed by the timing and knew he was putting the district in a difficult position,” Barrett said. “This is a big, big blow to us.”

Schatz said Friday that he was taking the weekend to make a final decision, but that he had let board members know that “it looked pretty strong” that he would be leaving.

After 16 years with three water districts, Schatz said it appeared now was the best time to take a job with Cox-West Properties, a development company in Riverside County.

“The up side is that this would mean substantially more economically,” said Schatz, who makes $117,000 a year as general manager.

Chuck Cox, the head of the company that runs a golf course, retirement community and shopping center in Indian Hills, as well as operating other properties in Riverside, Corona and Norco, said he had offered Schatz a job as the administrator of the entire development.

“He told me it was 99.5% certain he’d be coming over here,” Cox said. “I can’t wait to get him.”

Neither Cox nor Schatz would disclose how much Schatz would be earning with the development company.

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The news came as a shock to board members of the district, who are trying to recover from a year of scandal that saw the entire previous board of directors replaced, and forced the district’s two top managers into taking early retirement. Several officials are under a criminal investigation for possible conflict-of-interest violations.

Schatz said the lingering investigation by the Orange County district attorney’s office and the FBI had nothing to do with his decision. The offer, he said, came shortly after he decided to take the Santa Margarita Water District job.

“This has nothing to do with the district,” he said. “I was very happy there. This just all came about at a bad time.”

The board selected Schatz from a field of 138 candidates. Board members said they were impressed that Schatz, who was then employed at the Jurupa Community Services District in Riverside County, had a law degree and undergraduate degree in business.

Curtis Hummel, a Jurupa board member, said Schatz was “friendly with developers” in Riverside County and “led an effort to provide as much development as any developer could want.”

Schatz said he was simply following the direction of the majority of his board.

The Santa Margarita Water District board will have to decide whether to search through the entire list applications again or look at a smaller group of candidates that had made a final cut of hopefuls.

Under his agreement with the district, Schatz is free to leave his job immediately at any time but said he had discussed a reasonable transition time so the district can get another manager on board.