The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 176

1 JloS Angeles times SUNDAY, OCTOBER 1,1995 B3 ORANGE COUNTY DAI ITIC IOC ff i 4 behind-the-scenes look at Orange County 's political life Rail Link Ready Beginning Monday, a new rail link will connect Orange County and Riverside. Six trains will run between seven destinations. Stations also are proposed for Anaheim and Tustin. And a connection to San Bernardino is scheduled for next year. IFrouble in Irvine? Then Know What to Do: Point a Finger at Larry eencers beleaguered Irvine Councilman Barry J.

1)1 Hammond and Mayor Mike Ward, who are being targeted for recall along with Councilwoman Paula One way $3.50 Round-trip $6.00 10-trip pass Monthly pass HILLS ORANGE C0RN I' JJORANGE C0UNJY santaV tustin orange ana cowry 7 jRVINE 'Werner, are accusing former Mayor Larry Agran of i ncouraging residents to sign recall petitions as political pay-back. Agran was bounced from his mayoral post in 1990 pya slate of conservatives that included Hammond. Agran acknowledges he supports the recall because of the rieijncil members' "mismanagement and misconduct in financial matters" but has signed no recall petition and scoffs I il I RIVERSIDE I JL5 VORBA UNDA BLVD. CO. MsLSSWv Anaheim I Af lProPsedl ORANGE CO.

SANTIAGO 1 jW av. stj Santa ist st. A Tustin V- proposed V-VSSPH technologX. I LAGUNA JT MACARTHUR CANYON (3S I X. wVSr I BLVD' RD' y' Three trains will run each way, each weekday: To Irvine From IrvineSan Juan Capistrano A.M.

P.M. P.M. Train Number 800 802 804 A.M. A.M. P.M.

Train Number 801 803 805 Riverside- 5:39 6:48 2:40 Downtown Riverside- 5:57 7:06 3:03 La Sierra West Corona 6:08 7:17 3:14 Orange 6:38 7:46 3:53 Santa Ana 6:42 7:51 3:58 Irvine 6:55 8:04 4:11 vju ne mea mat ne is campaigning ior 11. f'JThis is the kind of paranoia that emerges from the kind of njoral bankruptcy we're observing at City Hall," Agran $aifl. "I guess their motto is, 'When you screw up big time, somebody jJWard, Hammond and Werner are being targeted for their Juty, 1994, vote to borrow $62 million to make an additional investment in the now-collapsed county pool. Jf-IJerOt'3 party: Ross Perot's arrival in Orange County Bturday and the renewed potential of another third party presidential candidate next year reminded many people of ftfle impact he had on the 1992 race. scored a major success in Orange County by polling 24 of the vote, a tally that provided him with more than 10 of his 2.1 million total votes statewide.

Here's a sampling of how Perot fared in some of the state's most populous counties: San Juan 5:08 Capistrano Irvine 8:20 4:47 5:20 Santa Ana 8:30 4:57 5:30 Orange 8:35 5:02 5:35 West Corona 9:00 5:27 6:00 Riverside- 9:11 5:38 6:11 La Sierra Riverside- 9:32 5:59 6:32 Downtown Source: Metrolink SUSAN SHOAFF Los Angeles TifflSs New Line, Less Stress Starting Mondaf Ross Perot's Impact in 1992 County Clinton Bush Perot Los Angeles 53 29 18 Orange 32 44 24 Riverside .39 37 24 San Bernardino 39 37 23 San Diego 37 36 26 San Francisco 72 18 9 Note: Percentages rounded; votes for other candidates not included Source: Secretary of state city to the north have for years had the option of ditching the freeways for the rails, riding aboard the several Orange County-to-Los Angeles trains that make the run every day. The fastest -growing commuter rail line in Southern California, that route attracts 1,700 riders a day, 61 of whom say they used to drive cars. But the combination of lower housing prices in Riverside County and more jobs in Orange County has created the need for still more train routes. The new route will be the first in the nation that neither originates nor ends in a major city, according to Peter Hidalgo, a spokesman for Metrolink, which operates the system. "We're trying to meet the demand of the consumer, particularly here in our sprawling Southern California region," he said.

"This is the future." Metrolink financed the $152-million system with half-cent sales taxes in Orange County, Riverside County and San Bernardino County, where service will be added early next year. Sarah Catz, a member of the Orange County Regional Transportation Authority's board and chairwoman of the Southern California Regional Rail Authority, shares Hidalgo's assessment of the new train line's significance. "It's historic," she said. "It's going to get lots of cars off the road" and contribute much to the economic development of southern Orange County. It's also going to make life easier for some of the estimated 58,000 people who live near Riverside but work in Orange County.

Until now, Hidalgo said, most of them sat in their cars on the Riverside Freeway fighting bumper -to bumper traffic in daily commutes that took as long as two hours each way. Now there's an alternative: They can park their cars at stations in Riverside or Corona, hop aboard the train and get off in Orange, Santa Ana or Irvine. And while en route they can read the newspaper in cushioned seats, work at tables designed for laptop computers or catch some shut-eye in the climate-controlled double-decker cars. "Our studies show that commuters place a high value on quality of life," Hidalgo said. "One selling point will come from people inching along the freeway who see our trains zipping by at79m.p.h." It was precisely the Southern California freeway-based lifestyle, in fact, for which the new system was designed.

"Census figures show that commuters today are making more trips from suburb to suburb than from suburb' to urban location," Hidalgo said. Indeed, many potential riders seem intrigued by the idea of catching a train to work. Bob Launders, who works as a lawyer in Costa Mesa but lives in Corona, says that riding the train could free up time ordinarily spent just staring at the road. "I could read, I eould he said. "It will be economically better for me, because I won't put the wear and tear on my car.

i Please see TRAIN, Bi Transit: Irvine-Riverside train link, the first to provide suburb-to-suburb service, promises 72 minutes of carefree commute. By DAVID HALDANE TIMES STAFF WRITER IRVINE Steve McCaughey will help make history this week simply by leaving his car at home while working in Irvine. Instead of spending more than an hour each morning fighting traffic on the Riverside Freeway, he will ride the rails from Corona to his Irvine office in 40 relaxing minutes. His means: what's being touted as the nation's first suburb-to-suburb commuter train line. "It's going to be a lot less stressful," said McCaughey, executive director of the Irvine Spectrum Transportation Management Association, a group that aims to reduce traffic in Irvine.

"I anticipate getting a lot more work done." McCaughey is one of the more than 500 commuters expected to take advantage of the new line linking Riverside and Orange counties beginning Monday morning. The trains will run back and forth six times daily between downtown Riverside and the Irvine Regional Transportation Center, gliding across the 49 miles of track in about 72 minutes. Orange County residents who work in the big BOOKS: 760 Censorship 'Incidents' in 1994! He'S OUt: Gov. Pete Wilson's long-awaited appointment of a i successor for retired County Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez could come this week.

But one hopeful, Charles W. (Pete) Maddox, has withdrawn his name and denounced the application process as "unacceptable." Maddox, a trustee of the Rancho Santiago Community College District, said the application violates the federal Americans with Disabilities Act by asking if he has any "major physical disabilities." He also contended the application violates his constitutional right to privacy by asking his birth i date, his ethnicity and the name of his spouse while informing him that "an extensive investigation" of his personal and business background will be undertaken. I Wilson's camp could not be reached for comment. Next Campaign: Ex-Marine Bill Kogerman, a tireless Opponent of a proposed commercial airport at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, has another cause he's fired up about. Kogerman who is helping lead the drive to overturn Measure which recommends a commercial airport be located at the base says he will seek legislation to change the way initiatives qualify for the ballot.

-Because of current rules, his volunteer organization, Taxpayers for Responsible Planning, was required to submit 100,000 signatures to the registrar of voters all at once, with no additions allowed later. The laws are much more lenient for efforts such as recalls, where professional organizations can turn in their petitions 1 incrementally and keep a running total of the number of signatures they lack. i Cutting taxes: Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) is working on a tax cut that his office stresses is aimed at I helping small -business owners and their heirs. Cox is touting his bill to repeal the estate tax because it hurts economic growth.

Even though federal law allows tax exemptions for estates valued at under $600,000, Cox's staff said the law doesn't go very far in a place like Orange County, where the median home value is $190,000. Because of high taxes, small businesses rarely survive from one generation to the next, Cox argued. The tax repeal was listed as the fourth highest priority during a White House Conference on Small Business earlier this year. 5 estate tax punishes lifelong habits of hard work and thrift, penalizes families, discourages entrepreneurship and capital formation, and creates enormous amounts of economically useless 'work' for lawyers and accountants," said Cox, a lawyer by profession. 'I Quote Of the Week: "Ross Perot is not welcome in Orange County.

As far as I'm concerned, he elected Bill and now he's trying to get Bill Clinton reelected. We are doing our best to do those things the American people wanted, and he's rewarding our hard work with a slap in the face. I don't like that. I wouldn't take that from a sane man, much less a nut case like Ross Perot." Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) on Perot making Orange County a key site in his effort for a new political party.

Book Brouhaha Here's a list of some of the books that have been banned or challenged in Orange County: "Fahrenheit 45 1" by Ray Bradbury: Expurgated at Irvine's Venado Middle School in 1992. Students received copies with scores of words mostly "hells" and "damns" blacked out. The novel is about book burning and censorship. After receiving complaints from parents and being contacted by reporters, school officials said censored copies would no longer be used. "My Brother Sam Is Dead" by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier: Removed from fifth-grade classes at Bryant Ranch Elementary School in the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District in 1994 because "the book is not G-rated.

Offensive language is offensive language. Graphic violence is graphic violence, no matter what the context." "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy: Challenged as "obscene and pornographic" but retained in the Anaheim Union High School District in 1993. "Silas Marner" by George Eliot: Banned from Anaheim Union High School District English classrooms in 1978. "Ordinary People" by Judith Guest: Challenged because it is "degrading to Christians" but retained at the Anaheim Union High School District in 1993. "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell: Banned from Anaheim Union High School District English classrooms in 1978.

Source: American Library Researched by MICHAEL GRANBERRY Los Angeles Times in the late 19th Century, said the library executive, who is also a ranking member of the American; Civil Liberties Union. "It was chal-j lenged initially because it was anti-slavery, and in those days you' didn't take that position. "The book has a character named Huckleberry Finn, and it has a black character named Nigger Jim who is compassionate and creative and astute. he's the only character in the book! with any brains. It merely reflects1 the period of time in which it was; written.

And it reflects the author's views that slavery was The Anaheim Union High School District has developed a policy for, dealing with parents who raise challenges to such books, and in recent years, the challenges have been more frequent. District official Camille Dolas said parents who approach a teach-! er with complaints about a book; are asked to fill out a "challenge form." That form is sent to the superin-! tendent of schools, who advises the, board of trustees, who then appoint a challenge committee of five td nine members.1 "We try to insure a majority of parents to avoid an overabundance of educators," Dolas said. "We do insist, however, that everyone read the book in its entirety." The pros and cons of the book are then analyzed and discussed! "much as if the work were on trial," Dolas said. After the com" mittee votes, its recommendations' are sent to the board of trustees; and they have the final say. In Anaheim, the thoroughness of the approach has helped to keep; certain books on the shelves, Dolas said.

But in her view, its most rewarding aspect has been in keeping everyone's emotions about this book or that as mellow as possible. i "Ours is a rational process," Dolas said, "but unfortunately, when you're dealing with challenges to books, you're often not dealing with rational people. For some reason, people get that way about books." Continued from Bl groups, which are waging war against Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," now the most targeted book in America. With a small African American population, Orange County has remained a safe haven for "Huckleberry Finn." But the Rev. Louis P.

Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition, based in Anaheim, and Robert Simond's National Assn. of Christian Educators, based in Santa Ana, were among those leading the charge against "Daddy's Roommate" the most heavily banned book of 1993 which examines the sexuality of two gay men. Its primary audience: 5- to 10-year-olds. The battlefield is full of other casualties, locally as well as nationally. Only two years ago, "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy and "Ordinary People" by Judith Guest were "challenged but retained" in the Anaheim Union High School District, which in 1978 banned from its classrooms both "Silas Marner" and "Gone with the Wind." They have since been reinstated.

In 1992, students at Venado Middle School in Irvine were handed expurgated copies of Ray Bradbury's science-fiction masterpiece "Fahrenheit 451." An unidentified person had individually and painstakingly censored from each copy scores of words, mostly heUs and damns. The irony failed to escape scores of parents, who complained to school officials. After all, Bradbury's book involves parallel themes of book-burning and censorship, hence the title (451 degrees Fahrenheit being the temperature at which paper burns). Such stories are commonplace in the annals of threatened books. In 1994, works under siege ranged, according to the library association, from "traditional fairy tales to how-to books about the occult, from dictionaries to religious works to social studies texts." They included Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid," 1 Los Angeles Times six months of 1995, Krug said, a new contender has taken hold.

Mark Twain's classic "Huckleberry Finn" has become the "most threatened or challenged book of our time," she said. In its case, however, the critics are not advocates of the Christian right or even secular conservatives. Twain's fiercest foes include the National Assn. the Advancement of Colored People and other African American groups, which say the book's language is racist. Complaints cited by a school in Butler, were typical of those raised.

'The Adventures of Huckleberry officials said, "contains racial slurs and bad grammar and does not reject slavery." Such opposition leaves Krug incensed. "'Huckleberry Finn' has been challenged since it was published," which was challenged in Bedford, because it supposedly was "pornographic" and contained "Satanic pictures." "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman" was yanked in Conroe, after critics complained that too many racial slurs hovered among its pages. Indeed, political correctness formed the cornerstone of most complaints in 1994, according to F. Krug, director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom of the Chicago-based American Library Assn. In 1993, the most challenged book in America, Krug said, was "Daddy's Roommate," by Michael Willhoite.

Targeted for children, the book, in the words of critics, seeks to condone, explain or promote homosexual lifestyles. The book was never introduced in Orange County schools. But in 1994, and through the first 4 Wednesday: Ernie Schneider, former county administrative officer, will discuss "The Real History of the Orange County Bankruptcy" at the meeting of the Committees of Correspondence at? p.m. at the Orange City Hall. Information: Carole Walters at (714) 633-6725 or Bob Aultat (714) 891-2231.

5 Compiled by Times staff writer Len Hall with contributions from Times staff writers Gebe Martinez and Peter M. Warren and correspondent Russ ioar, Politics '95 appears every Sunday. Items can be mailed to Politics '95, 1375 Sunflower Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or faxed to (714) 966-7711. te 0 im rik, iv m- i.