<i> Snapshots of life in the Golden State.</i> : Captive Population Makes for Major Growth Spurt

Although California’s population grew at its slowest pace in nearly two decades during 1992, one city more than doubled in size.

What’s more, officials of the tiny Imperial County farming community of Calipatria can rest assured that their new residential base will not shrink any time soon--even though a majority of the inhabitants would prefer living almost anywhere else.

The reason for the startling 134% growth spurt was the opening of the maximum-security Calipatria State Prison on a former lettuce field a few miles east of the desolate Salton Sea.

“It’s a captive population, that’s for sure,” says City Clerk Margaret Hatfield. “We don’t expect to be losing any of them.”

Calipatria’s prison population of 3,473--which includes about 2,000 convicts serving life sentences --was larger than its household population of 3,363, according to the survey undertaken by the state Department of Finance. And since the study was completed, the prison population has jumped to 3,907 convicts.

Calipatria, which dubs itself “The Lowest Down City in the Western Hemisphere” because it stands 184 feet below sea level, has also seen its household population increase by 387 in the last year--largely because of the 900 jobs created by the prison’s opening.

H. D. Palmer, assistant director of the Department of Finance, had no comment on whether the fact that criminals are responsible for the state’s largest population gain says anything about the fiscal and felony-related health of California.

“But as Gov. Wilson has said,” Palmer noted, “this is one part of California’s population we don’t recruit. They get there in the old-fashioned way, they earn it.”

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More growth: Despite the fact that Imperial County’s unemployment rate soared past the 30% mark for much of 1992, two other cities in the isolated, agricultural county were among the 10 fastest growing in the state.

They were Imperial, 23%, and Calexico, 10%.

The fastest-growing California cities with more than 50,000 residents were Mission Viejo, 12%, and Victorville, 11%.

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Adopt-an-atom: In the San Fernando Valley, Bette Midler sponsors the cleanup of a two-mile segment of the Ventura Freeway. Elsewhere in Los Angeles County, participants in the state’s Adopt-a-Highway program include Moose lodges and a nudist colony.

On a stretch of Interstate 40 in the east Mojave Desert, litter removal is sponsored by, of all companies, a landfill firm, U.S. Ecology, which seeks to operate a controversial proposed low-level radioactive waste dump outside Needles.

Critics have questioned the wisdom of burying nuclear waste alongside a highway just 19 miles from a major California water source, the Colorado River. U.S. Ecology--which last week won a court battle to speed up its license application--counters that its Ward Valley landfill plan is safe.

Among the issues in contention is the half-life of radioactive substances that would be deposited at the site. Thus far, neither side has weighed in on another question: What is the half-life of a plastic foam coffee cup?

Californians and Cancer

African-Americans had the highest overall cancer rate in the state between 1988 and 1990, according to a study by the state Department of Health Services. Variations occurred with different types of cancer. Anglo women, for example, had a higher rate of breast cancer than African-American women. The chart shows cases of cancer per 100,000 people each year, by ethnic group.

TYPE ASIAN/OTHER* BLACK LATINO ANGLO Colo-rectal 32.3 53.9 25.5 47.0 Lung/bronchus 33.2 76.7 27.5 65.1 Breast** 58.9 99.4 58.6 120.3 Prostate*** 45.4 150.6 66.3 108.8 All cancers 237.3 415.9 235.9 401.9

* Includes Asian/Pacific Islanders and American Indians ** Women only ***Men only

Source: “Cancer Incidence and Mortality by Race/Ethnicity in California, 1988-1990” by the state Department of Health ServicesCompiled by Times researcher Tracy Thomas

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Felonious pedagogue finds work: Following the California Assembly’s rejection of Republican Sen. Marian Bergeson as state superintendent of public instruction, the jockeying continues in Sacramento over the naming of a successor to Democrat Bill Honig.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, Honig, who was removed from office after his conflict-of-interest conviction, has already begun working as a visiting lecturer and director of a new Center for Systematic School Reform at San Francisco State University.

The hiring of Honig, found guilty of authorizing $337,509 in state contracts that benefited his wife’s nonprofit Quality Education Project, has caused consternation among some Cal State trustees.

But since the move appears to be legal, “the hiring and firing of faculty is not something we need to get our noses into,” says Anthony M. Vitti, chairman of the Board of Trustees.

Honig, who will earn up to $60,000 a year, can sure use the money, but it will hardly pay his bills. He was recently ordered by a Sacramento Superior Court judge to pay restitution of $274,754 in addition to a $10,800 fine, four years of probation and 1,000 hours of community service.

EXIT LINE

“Though tasting nothing like their supposed European ancestors, such Julio Gallo pizza and picnic wines as Hearty Burgundy, Chablis Blanc and Rhine helped lay the groundwork for the nation’s chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon obsession.”

--From a New York Times editorial on the death of Julio Gallo.