<i> Snapshots of life in the Golden State.</i> : No Wonder the State Has So Many Beautiful People

What is the state’s most popular licensed profession? Cosmetology.

At last count, Sacramento officials had issued 386,411 licenses to cosmetologists. Next in line, with fewer than 300,000 licensees each, were contractors and nurses.

Auto repairmen held another, less favorable, distinction--No. 1 in complaints received by the state Department of Consumer Affairs. For 53,995 licensed dealers, there were 40,503 complaints during the recent 12-month period.

Professions with the fewest practitioners include acupuncture, hearing aid dispensing, nursing home administration and guide dog training.

POLITICAL INSIDER

Moniker majority: The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors could soon have a majority of Johnsons.

Muriel Johnson, a community activist, has taken nomination papers to run for a seat in the June election. The five-member board includes Grantland Johnson and Toby Johnson. None of the Johnsons are related.

COLLEGE REPORT

Recession relief: In an era of cost containment, pomp and circumstance is increasingly a victim within the state’s higher education system.

When Barry Munitz recently took over as chancellor of the 20-campus California State University system, he did so without a public inauguration blowout.

And at UC Berkeley, the annual March 23 Charter Day celebration commemorating the legislation that established the UC system has been canceled.

“We must do everything we can to cut back on nonessential costs during this difficult financial period,” says Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien, whose office estimates the savings at $30,000.

Not to worry, though. Charter Day, which in the past has included speeches by Presidents John F. Kennedy and Theodore Roosevelt, is scheduled to return on the 125th anniversary of the university next year.

Halting the hikes: Alex Wong, a UC Berkeley law student appointed to serve as a UC regent next year, says he has no intention of endorsing more student fee hikes.

His predecessor, UC San Francisco graduate student Diana Darnell, burst into tears recently after reluctantly voting for a 24% systemwide rise. The Board of Regents vote, increasing UC fees by a total of 91% since 1990, has set off angry campus demonstrations.

“People say, gosh, $3,000 for a top-ranked university is still a bargain,” says Wong, 26. “But with living expenses (hiking the average annual bill to $11,000 for state residents), the fees are becoming exclusive. It’s clear the middle class is being pushed out.”

Lobbying the Legislature

Professional groups, businesses, labor unions and other special interests spent more than $116 million in 1991 to lobby the Legislature and the executive branch of state government, reports Secretary of State March Fong Eu. At that rate, more will be spent lobbying during the two-year, 1991-92 legislative session than in the previous two years when total lobbying expenses averaged $96.8 million a year. Lobbying is a growth industry in California despite the recession.

* The top 10 in lobbyist spending in 1991 were:

LOBBYIST AMOUNT 1) California Teachers Assn. $2,616,845 2) Assn. of California Insurance Cos. $2,105,613 3) Western States Petroleum Assn. $1,926,032 4) California Medical Assn. $1,901,133 5) Pacific Telesis Group $1,494,288 6) California Manufacturers Assn. $1,450,826 7) California Trial Lawyers Assn. $1,395,378 8) California Cogeneration Council $1,179,960 9) Metropolitan Water District $1,104,994 of S. California 10) Waste Management Inc. $1,025,063

SOURCE: California Secretary of State

ENVIRONMENTAL OUTTAKES

Effort turns sour: A Berkeley city councilwoman’s effort to paint her home in an environmentally correct manner turned sour, forcing her to evacuate.

The odoriferous incident occurred when Councilwoman Nancy Skinner used a German-manufactured, milk-based paint to redo her interior walls late last year. A few days later, Skinner, who runs a nonprofit environmental consulting agency, began smelling what she described to a local newspaper as “like really bad compost and body odor all mixed up together.”

Skinner has since torn out the walls, installed new wallboard and repainted--but has not yet been able to return home to live.

One step ahead: In Auburn, a three-day clinic billed as Northern California’s first multicultural herb conference has been scheduled for June.

Titled “Dances With Herbs,” the seminar will feature healers and nutritionists from Greece and Alaska as well as more local Navajo and Cherokee Indian tribal lands.

Lecture topics include “Gardening by the Moon” (that’s lunar cycles, not night gardening) and “Chinese Energetics.” Also featured is a woman billed as an aromatherapist.

“That’s dealing with the body, mind and spirit with scents using essential oils,” conference spokeswoman Kim Rutter explains. “For example, lavender is known to be an antidepressant. So just inhaling it, just smelling it is to lift the spirit.”

EXIT LINE

“We pray for rain. We dance for rain. We chant for rain. We wash and wax the car for rain.”

--Organic Gardening magazine editor Jeff Cox, writing about how some Californians have coped with the lingering drought.