The San Diego-Metropolitan Feud Helped Launch An Ethics Office, And Now It May Bring It Down

In 1999, the state Legislature made the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California create an ethics office. Metropolitan, the main supplier of San Diego’s water, had just been caught up in an ethically questionable public relations campaign aimed at blocking the San Diego County Water Authority from buying water from someone else. Now, that ethics office – rather than mediating the long-running feud between the Water Authority and Metropolitan – has become another tool in the fight.