In step with many government agencies around the state, Public Works director Charles Herbertson said his department is beginning to study the most appropriate actions to take.

Gov. Brown issued a directive for California communities to shave their water usage by a hefty percentages, varying from town to town. In Culver City’s case, 24 percent.

“We are looking at what we can do for city facilities,” Mr. Herbertson said. “We already have taken several actions.”

One of City Hall’s earliest responses has been cut off the irrigation to the lawn on the north side of City Hall.

“When you look at it,” said Mr. Herbertson, “you will see it is slowly changing from shades of green to shades of yellow and eventually to shades of brown. We had better get used to this.”

Another soon-to-be-noticed change: No more watering of “ornamental turf, found mainly in medians.”

The Public Works director said many of the city’s urinals already are on a waterless standard. “We probably will have to expand that while coming up with a laundry list of what else we can do to reduce our water use.”

The next likely change will be to track water usage at city facilities in order to develop a formula for conserving. When water was, or seemed, more plentiful than no, who worried?

Given the Sacramento cutback order, Mr. Herbertson expects the increasingly influential Golden State Water Co. “to eventually develop a rate structure that will penalize people if they use more than a certain amount of water. If they exceed the allotted amount, their monthly bill will be much higher.”

This scenario is not expected to reach into private homes immediately. Mr. Herbertson estimated late summer, early autumn.

(To be continued)