County Will Crate Up Exhibit in Capitol

As they walk through the halls of the Capitol in Sacramento, Orange County legislators try not to glance at the 5-by-3-foot window display that is supposed to boast of the best things in their home area.

It doesn’t, they say.

“It’s an embarrassment,” Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder said Wednesday. “ . . . For those of you who have not had the dubious privilege of seeing the exhibit there, it is a crate of oranges.”

Actually, there are seven crates, each bearing pictures and words depicting different aspects of Orange County life.

“Ranchos,” one says.

“Tourism,” says another, over a picture of Mickey Mouse.

“Courthouse,” another proclaims.

The exhibit, just outside the governor’s office, is one of 58 permanent displays in the first-floor halls of the Capitol--one for each of the state’s counties.

Wednesday, as part of a crusade that Wieder began years ago, the supervisors decided that “the time has come to bring Orange County into a new design mode,” said Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez.

Although the original designers of the exhibit certainly had good intentions, Vasquez said, he knew from his two years of work in the governor’s office that a new exhibit was needed.

“We have gotten many complaints from our state legislators who have to pass by it on a regular basis,” Wieder said. “They make fun of it.”

The new exhibit is to be built by Reliable Decorating & Parade Floats Inc. of Riverside. The supervisors Wednesday appropriated $2,400, and $2,000 more will be contributed by Orange County Centennial Inc., a nonprofit group.

Rod Speer, a Wieder aide, said the new design will be a large camera with a mirror for a lens and the caption, “Picture Yourself in Orange County.” Surrounding the mirror will be scenic pictures of Orange County beaches and recreational areas, he said.

The existing exhibit was built in 1979 by a group of high school students as a class project. By 1984, Wieder had begun her campaign to remove it.

That year, the supervisors approved a plan to put a new exhibit in the display window. But it was never done.

“It fell through the bureaucratic cracks,” Wieder said.

“Compare ours to some of the smaller counties who take great pride in their exhibits,” she said. “It’s like window shopping, but they go right past us.”