County’s New Telebusiness Site Dedicated : Antelope Valley: The goal of the center, to open next month, is to cut traffic and air pollution. Many workers drive 140 miles between their homes and jobs.

In an effort to bring the office to the worker and relieve congested freeways, county officials dedicated a new commuter work center in Lancaster on Wednesday.

The Antelope Valley Telebusiness Center, the first of its kind in Los Angeles County, was funded with about $300,000 in grants from the county Transportation Commission and the South Coast Air Quality Management District. Another $200,000 in cash and equipment was donated by 29 companies, including Apple Computer, GTE California, Compaq Computer and Hewlett-Packard.

The center, which has five private offices, 15 cubicles and a video conference room, is due to open the second week of February. Most desks will be equipped with computers, phones and modems that will allow workers to link to their employers’ mainframe computers. Faxes, copiers and laser printers will also be available.

Commitments have been made for 51% of the available time slots for the work space at the center from companies, including Health Net, Pepsi Cola Bottling and Southern California Edison.

“It’s filling up faster than we anticipated,” said Nancy Apeles Eiser, manager of the county’s telecommuting program.

Use of the facility is free for the first year, after which participants will pay about $20 per day. Officials expect that the center will eventually be self-supporting.

In dedicating the center, county Supervisor Mike Antonovich said it would augment another program begun in 1988 through which 2,600 county employees work at home at least part of the time. The goal of these programs is to reduce traffic and air pollution, he said.

“Telecommuting is one effective strategy to meet that goal,” he said, “and we are seeing the results every day in Los Angeles County through increased productivity and morale.”

The Lancaster site was chosen because so many of the area’s residents commute into the Los Angeles Basin.

Dawson Oppenheimer, Antonovich’s press deputy, said the average round-trip commute for the 38,000 Antelope Valley residents who work in Los Angeles is about 140 miles.

The county estimates that in full use the telebusiness center would prevent the release of more than 24,000 tons of pollutants into the air annually, and would save employees 25,000 hours of commuting time, Oppenheimer said.

Janice Golden, a personnel officer at the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Assn., said one employee who lives about 10 minutes from the center will begin working there in February. The employee now drives 62 miles each way from her home to the association’s office in Pasadena.

“Right now, we’re content with trying an employee and seeing how it works,” Golden said. “For those people who live quite a ways from work, this could be an answer.”

Health Net, the large health-maintenance organization headquartered in Warner Center in Woodland Hills, will be one of the center’s largest users, with 12 employees scheduled to work there part time.

James J. Wilk, Health Net’s vice president of human resources, said the company was considering opening a satellite office near the Antelope Valley when he received a letter from the county publicizing the center.

“That’s probably the fastest you ever saw my fingers dial a number,” he said.

With more than 50 employees who live in the Antelope Valley, Wilk said, Health Net will closely track the progress of the telecommuting employees and possibly expand the number of telecommuters in the future.