<i> Snapshots of life in the Golden State.</i> : California’s Contribution to Race for White House

Jerry Brown isn’t the only unorthodox Californian seeking the presidency this year.

Ten of the record 63 candidates who have filed to run in the New Hampshire primary are from here, more contenders than from any other state.

With a $1,000 filing fee the only qualification for inclusion on the ballot, the California cadre includes actor Tom (“Billy Jack”) Laughlin, comedian Pat Paulsen, former Irvine Mayor Larry Agran and Vietnam veteran/anti-war activist Ron Kovic.

Brown is also joined by five complete novices, some of whom have provided election officials with nothing more than a certified check and a post office box number.

The stealth candidates include Democrat Dean Curtis of Venice and Republicans Thomas Fabish of Harbor City, F. Dean Johnson of Long Beach, Oscar A. Erickson of Hollywood and Tennie Rogers of Sierra Madre.

Rogers, for one, seems every bit the political outsider that former Gov. Brown is trying to convince New Hampshire residents he is.

A retired high school teacher who is the only female on the Republican list, Rogers contends that career politicians “lose touch with, shall we say, reality.”

Unlike Brown, Rogers has no 1-800-number for contributors to dial. Rather, the 64-year-old grandmother is mailing fund-raising letters at random to citizens across the nation whose names she culls from telephone books at the public library.

POLITICAL INSIDER

With God on our side: Conservative Republican Senate candidate William B. Allen has complained to the state attorney general that certain leaders of the religious right are trying to intimidate him from pursuing the same seat being sought by U.S. Rep. William Dannemeyer.

As evidence, Allen released a letter he received from a group of conservative Christian leaders stating that “the forces of righteousness” would prefer that he withdrew.

The U.S. Civil Rights Commission member says he was also anonymously mailed a rough draft of the missive, which states that if he persists in running, “We suspect that God himself will take efforts to discipline you and judge this action of yours however he sees fit.”

Jay Grimstead, chairman of the California Activists Network who signed the letter, counters that Allen is making an issue out of whole cloth since the rough draft was never meant to be mailed before editing.

Unemployment Rates

The current recession has hit hard around the state, with the unemployment rate rising sharply in many counties over the last two years. The list below compares unemployment rates in selected California counties.

COUNTY %NOV.’89 %NOV.’91 Fresno 10.4 12.0 Riverside 6.1 9.6 Los Angeles 5.2 8.5 San Bernardino 4.2 7.0 Sacramento 4.0 6.0 San Diego 3.5 5.6 Santa Clara 3.3 5.1 San Francisco 3.6 4.6

SOURCE: Employment Development Dept., Sacramento.

Compiled by researcher Tracy Thomas

PROFESSIONAL POTPOURRI

S.F. to L.A.--get outta here: First, there was last summer’s offer by a trio of Los Angeles artists to construct a massive sculpture reading “This Is a Nice Neighborhood” outside San Francisco’s Moscone Convention Center. After a stink by locals, the city’s Arts Commission scuttled plans for the 14-foot-high “word bridges.”

Now, some Bay Area residents are taking issue with a Port of San Francisco proposal to plant 350 palm trees along the route where the Embarcadero Freeway was torn down.

Project coordinator Paul Osmundson says callers to the Port office have a “gut-level reaction” about the possible Los Angelization of San Francisco. Port spokeswoman Veronica Sanchez contends, however, that “Los Angeles is really a shorthand for something else.”

“They mean that palms look recreation-and-resort-like, as opposed to the San Francisco waterfront, which has historically been a working, industrial waterfront.”

REVOLVING DOOR

Jobs, jobs, jobs: Vanquished San Francisco mayor Art Agnos is only one recent pol to step from elected office into a high-paying state job.

Agnos, named by Assembly Speaker Willie Brown to the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board a mere six hours after departing City Hall, joins a list that includes former state Sens. Jim Ellis (R-El Cajon) and Jim Nielsen (R-Rohnert Park), appointed to $90,000-a-year slots on the Agricultural Labor Relations Board by former Gov. George Deukmejian.

Gov. Pete Wilson named retired Rep. Norman D. Shumway (R-Stockton) to a $92,465 post on the Public Utilities Commission. He also hired Thomas Hayes, who lost a run for state Treasurer, as his finance director.

Agnos actually took a pay cut in making his move. Agnos will only get $92,460 a year in his new, somewhat less than backbreaking post, compared to $132,000 as mayor.

EXIT LINE

“It is as if Toyota stopped making little trucks, or Congress swore off press releases, or the Super Bowl banned beer commercials.”

--Washington Post reporter Jay Mathews writing about the fact that for the first time in 28 years, no voter-sponsored initiatives will be on California’s June ballot.

California Dateline appears every other Monday.