Orange County 1990 : Astrologer Sees Future for O.C.

If Orange County refuses to grow up, it may not be desirable--but it will be understandable, says Newport Beach astrologer James Baker.

“Orange County itself is a Leo,” he said.

Using the county’s incorporation date, Aug. 1, 1889, and noon as an arbitrary but “traditional” time of “birth,” Baker has charted Orange County’s horoscope as one more way of peering into the ‘90s--a decade that futurists predict will be full of home computers, bank cards, global warming and more traffic congestion.

From the celestial perspective, the coming decade is a time of Scorpio, Sagittarius and Capricorn transitions. For Leos like Orange County, that means trouble.

The problem with Leos is that while they like to have fun, build stadiums and amusement parks and invite strangers down to play on their beaches, they also tend to be egotistical, isolationist and want the guests to leave when they’re through, he said.

“Leo is like a little kid who says, ‘Look at me! Look at me! and then is embarrassed when people do,” he said.

Baker said many of his Orange County clients are in real estate. “They talk about the problems in Houston, Phoenix and Denver,” he said. “They tell me that can’t happen here, that Orange County is a special market where land prices are going up. That’s the ego of the Leo saying they’re gods and not realizing something bigger is going on other than them.”

Curiously, conflicts are coming partly because world peace is breaking out, he said. “In Orange County, where there’s strong investment in the defense industry, there’s a conflict between our belief system and our pocketbook.”

For Orange County--which relishes freedom of choice for the individual--”doing business with the government is a contradiction, and contradictions won’t work.”

The critical time frame financially will be between summer of 1990 and fall, 1994, Baker said. “It looks to me that Orange County will have to make some major adjustments, stay on their toes, watch out for all the problems we’re all dealing with,” he said. Commitments to joint solutions to traffic and education problems should be made by 1991 and implemented before 1996--the time of greatest change and conflict, he said. By 1998 it’ll be clear whether they worked or not, he said.

There is a high potential for Orange County to solve its traffic problem, he said, “as long as Newport Beach is not fighting with Santa Ana, and Santa Ana is not fighting with Cypress.”

Baker said he is concerned the negative side of Leo might polarize the haves and have-nots regarding education. “We need to leave the door open for all citizens to take advantage of educational opportunity rather than dividing by territory,” he said.