Approval for water districts’ news division

In a highly un­usu­al move, the Cent­ral Basin Mu­ni­cip­al Wa­ter Dis­trict has hired a con­sult­ant to pro­duce pro­mo­tion­al stor­ies “writ­ten in the im­age of real news,” ac­cord­ing to re­cords re­viewed by The Times. The agree­ment was first ap­proved in Novem­ber 2010 and ex­ten­ded earli­er this year.