Catch Us if You Can May Be Easier Than Thought

Concerned about motorists zooming through the elite streets of its wealthy hamlet, the Rancho Santa Fe Assn. has convinced the California Highway Patrol to begin using radar to discourage speeders. During a 30-day “conditioning period,” a CHP spokesman said, only verbal warnings, not citations, will be issued in Rancho Santa Fe. Nevertheless, ranch residents already are attempting to circumvent the $2,000 state-of-the--art radar unit.

Gail MacLeod, a Rancho Santa Fe Assn. planner, said the residents of Rancho Santa Fe have been scrambling to purchase radar detection devices for up to $250 apiece, even though they’ve been warned that the CHP units are designed to circumvent the detectors. Some families, she said, “have equipped all of their cars” with the apparently worthless devices.

“Rancho Santa Fe always has been a tough place to enforce speed limits,” said the CHP spokesman. “It used to be that we lost a lot of speeders because of the curves in the road--if they got one car-length ahead, we couldn’t catch them. With the radar patrols, that won’t be happening anymore.”

The Winning Names

Former KFMB disc jockey and Padre booster Gini Cavitt left the local radio station this summer and has taken a job at a country-western station in Kansas City. As the baseball playoffs got under way, she was interviewed via a telephone hookup by KFMB’s Mark Walton, who, noting that Cavitt had left for Kansas City at the same time the Padres began their slide out of first place, wondered whether Gini was as enamored with the Royals as she had been with the the Goose, Gwynn, Garvey and Co. last year when San Diego hosted the World Series.

No way, said Cavitt, reaffirming her lifelong allegiance to the Padres. “After all,” she said, “how can you root for a team whose players have names like (Buddy) Biancalana, (Bret) Saberhagen and (Dan) Quisenberry?”

Something tells us Cavitt’s Kansas City listeners are hearing a slightly different tune this morning.

A Bit of History

The county primary election is not until June, but Paul Eckert already has begun campaigning for a third term on the Board of Supervisors. Those North County historical lessons he’s been broadcasting on radio station KMLO in Vista actually are paid political advertisements.

Among the tales related by Eckert are the history of Rancho Guajome in Oceanside, the role played by mules in laying out the streets of Vista, and how Palomar Mountain and the various North County cities got their names. Eckert’s radio spots have been so successful that the supervisor is promoting them on North County Transit District buses.

Gene Alfred, KMLO’s general manager, credits Eckert with devising an “interesting schedule of messages. I admire this unique approach, and I’ve never seen anything done quite like it in 20 years in the business.”

Alfred said he cringed when Eckert approached the station about purchasing air time for the spots, but said they have been a big hit with the listeners. “I have been very impressed, and believe me, I didn’t think I would be,” Alfred said. “Paul’s little pieces really are interesting, and he’s got a darn good delivery.”

Betting on Calls

For 50 cents, or half the cost of a lottery ticket, San Diegans can now call 976-4946 for the latest updates on the new Lottery Hotline. Hughes Miller, a resident of the San Fernando Valley, is the brains behind this newest lottery gimmick, which is available statewide.

Miller’s company, Lottery Information Services, which is independent from the state, gives callers general lottery information. “It’s kind of an interim program to establish our service until the on-line games (which will differ from the initial scratch-off format) start in the spring,” Miller said. “That’s when the hot line really should take off, because callers can find out the winning lottery numbers right away, rather than waiting for television or newspapers.”

Lottery Information Services is gambling that the hot line will be a big success. By spring, Miller said he plans to broadcast the winning numbers in Spanish, Japanese, Chinese and Korean, as well as English.

Touching Home Base

Staff writer Barry M. Horstman of The Los Angeles Times San Diego County Edition has won far-flung fame--all the way to Parkston, S.D.--for his coverage of the trials and tribulations of Mayor Roger Hedgecock.

On Monday, Horstman received a letter from a Times reader in the tiny South Dakota town, which has a population of 1,611, according to the 1970 census. The letter writer said that as a “strong Dodger fan I subscribed to the Los Angeles Times near the end of the baseball season,” and went on to tell of seeing Horstman’s byline on a story describing how Hedgecock intended to remain in office despite his conviction on felony perjury and conspiracy charges.

Parkston’s Henry Horstman Jr. went on to ask San Diego’s Barry M. Horstman if the two might be related, noting that Horstman is “a rare name,” and that all of the Horstmans in his neck of the woods “are from a common background.”

Barry says he doesn’t know of any long-lost Uncle Henry but joked that he wouldn’t rule out the possibility until he finds out how wealthy the South Dakota man is.