HIGH ROLLERS: The wealthiest 1% of Americans--the...

HIGH ROLLERS: The wealthiest 1% of Americans--the ones who pay higher taxes under President Clinton’s deficit plan--include thousands of Ventura County residents. And they’ve been hounding their accountants. “They’re not really thrilled about the whole thing,” said Judith St. John, a Thousand Oaks tax consultant. . . Big concern: the retroactivity of the tax increase. “A lot of people are going to be scrambling the rest of the year.” . . . One-third of the county’s $150,000-plus households are in Thousand Oaks.

PAPAL PILGRIMAGE: They peddled candy, washed cars and sold doughnuts after church. Now about 50 Ventura County teen-agers are on their way to Denver to see the Pope. . . . The youths boarded a 20-bus caravan that left Arcadia on Monday morning, accompanied by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony. They’ll attend an outdoor mass with John Paul II on Sunday. . . . “These youths identify with the Pope,” said Msgr. Anthony Leuer of Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Ventura. “And he relates to youths.”

FALLING STARS: Every August, the Perseid meteor shower lights up the night sky with shooting stars at the rate of one or more per minute. But this year’s shower, peaking Wednesday night and early Thursday, “is expected to be quite spectacular,” said Thomas Janssens, an astronomy professor at Cal Lutheran University (B14). . . . For best meteor-viewing, get away from city lights, he said. “But even without really dark skies you should see a lot of them.”

DISASTER AID: Ventura County residents have donated more than $17,000 for Midwestern flood relief, local Red Cross Director Brian Bolton said. . . . Now some are trying to ease the misery in Bosnia. A Camarillo company, Western Medical Ltd., is shipping 150 cases of bandages to Sarajevo. . . . In Europe, the relief shipment will be divvied up by Ojai resident Francois de la Roche, who has coordinated Red Cross aid distribution for eight months.

What We Earn

Household income in Ventura County: Below $50,000: 119,970 $50,000-$75,000: 53,266 $75,000-$100,000: 24,344 $100,000-$150,000: 14,196 Over $150,000: 5,947 Source: 1990 U.S. Census