Columbus Day Won’t Be Much of a Holiday in Orange County

Most of Orange County will mark the Columbus Day legal holiday today with business as usual.

Public elementary and secondary schools, state universities and community colleges, county government, Superior Court, Municipal Court and most city governments in Orange County will remain open today.

Federal offices, including post offices, will be closed, however. There will be no mail deliveries. Many banks will be closed as well.

Orange County government’s decision to work on the legal holiday is based on an option in state law that allows government employees to choose an alternate day off, said Alan Slater, executive officer of the Orange County Superior Court. Slater said that court and county government workers in the county have chosen to take off the Friday after Thanksgiving rather than Columbus Day.

While the legal holiday for Columbus Day now always falls on a Monday, the actual anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ Oct. 12, 1492, landing in the New World fell on Saturday.