Even in Troubled Times, People Pay the Mortgage

Despite recession, riots and plunging real estate values, California homeowners continue to exhibit some semblance of resilience--only 14 states had lower foreclosure rates during the second quarter of 1992.

The percentage of homes in foreclosure in California did nearly double in the last year, according to data compiled by the Mortgage Bankers Assn. of America. Yet the state’s foreclosure rate remains well below the national average.

At midyear, 0.72%, or one of every 138 homes, were in foreclosure in California. In mid-1991, 0.44% were in foreclosure.

By comparison, the national average has hovered around the 1% mark for several years.

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Paint it green: While each foreclosure represents a personal tragedy, different people handle it in different ways.

Riverside resident Patrick Kelly has settled on a unique, multihued manner to enjoy what could be his family’s final weeks in its four-bedroom abode.

The unemployed real estate investor and musician spray-painted the entire 2,000-square-foot rancho with rock ‘n’ roll slogans, symbols and portraits. “Alice Cooper!” read the message on a 50-foot back-yard fence. “Elvis Was Here” adorned the front. And “It’s Only Rock + Roll” stuck out over the entrance to the two-car garage.

After complaints from neighbors--one of whom opined, “I think he needs a little more green--green as in money”--Kelly said he would repaint the house white prior to this week’s scheduled foreclosure sale. But he changed his mind after rock star Cooper agreed to help Kelly, 33, forestall the foreclosure. Cooper appeared at the house Sunday and orchestrated a “rock ‘n’ roll yard sale” of his merchandise, including posters, CDs, cassettes and T-shirts to help raise money for Kelly’s cause.

Kelly says he undertook the artistic excursion in order to “go out with a smile on my face.”

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Gobbling Up the Area Codes

With this month’s debut of the 909 area code covering much of the Inland Empire, California now has a record 13 area codes. The recent addition of 909, 310 and 510 area codes is attributed in large part to explosive growth in the use of car phones, beepers, fax machines, automatic bank tellers and computer modems. Here is a look at the number of Pacific Bell phone lines devoted to pagers and car phones in the Southland and San Francisco Bay Area:

PAGERS

AREA CODES 1984 1992 714 and 909 20,000 380,000 213 and 310 20,000 560,000 818 20,000 270,000 415 and 510 Not available 490,000 CELLULAR PHONES AREA CODES 1984 1992 714 and 909 30,000 390,000 213 and 310 *None 290,000 818 *None 230,000 415 and 510 Not available 320,000

* In 1984, customers in the 213 and 818 area codes were assigned cellular phone lines in the 714 area code.

Source: Pacific Bell

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In the pits: They came bearing a coffin.

But rather than burying once-thriving Lindsay, 800 residents marching in a parade down Elmwood Avenue called for a rebirth of the jinxed Central Valley town.

In 1990, Lindsay’s orange crop was destroyed in the Christmas freeze. Then General Cable, the community’s third-largest employer, shut down. Finally, on the eve of the fall olive harvest, the Lindsay Olive cooperative closed and--adding insult to injury--sold the Lindsay brand name to a rival firm.

With the town in the dumps and the unemployment rate soaring to 37%, a grass-roots organization of residents responded by organizing last week’s procession. The coffin--containing a can of olives, a wire cable and frozen oranges--was buried in a community park to symbolize Lindsay’s efforts to rid itself of lingering pessimism.

“The way to effectively put the past behind us is to have a funeral, bury the most recent past and focus on a positive new beginning,” explained City Manager William Drennen. “And it’s worked. Walk down the streets today and you see more smiles and friendliness and less preoccupation with the recent past.”

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Jury Boxer: While Dianne Feinstein has already taken office, fellow U.S. Senate election winner Barbara Boxer sat far from the hallowed halls of the U.S. Capitol last week.

Rep. Boxer joined 118 other Marin County residents in reporting for jury duty at the county jury commissioner’s office. Waiting in vain to be called for a trial, Boxer, who is to be sworn into the Senate in January, kept busy by reading a newspaper and an abridged version of the Standing Rules of the U.S. Senate.

Her vanquished foe, Republican Bruce Herschensohn, has been keeping a low profile. However, a caller to his former campaign office received the following greeting from the receptionist last week: “Herschensohn for President, 1996.”

EXIT LINE

“There seems to be a greater connection in the north between politics and community than there is in the south. I think that it is a function of the mega-nature of Los Angeles, where it’s harder for people to plug in and know one another. You go to a Sacramento, a San Francisco, that’s very geographically compact and what you find with the political structure is that everyone tends to know each other.”

--Phil Angelides on what he has learned in his two-year tenure as state Democratic Party chairman.