U.S. to Review O.C. Race Bias Complaint : Allegations: Federal commissioner will urge a formal assessment of Latino group’s charges of widespread discrimination in county government.

A federal civil rights complaint on racial discrimination in Orange County, filed last month by a California Latino rights organization, will be referred to a regional commission for review, officials said Wednesday.

Spurred by a recent report by the Orange County Grand Jury that linked illegal immigration to a wide variety of society’s ills, the state and local branches of the League of United Latin American Citizens filed the 22-point complaint last month with the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The group claimed that Orange County minorities suffer widespread discrimination from nearly all levels of government.

Bobby Doctor, the federal commission’s acting director, said he will contact the commission’s western regional office--which monitors civil rights compliance in California and 10 other western states--to recommend a review of the complaint, said Charles Rivera, chief spokesman for the federal agency.

While the recommendation does not ensure a federal investigation or a public hearing--as LULAC has demanded--it is the first sign that the commission is moving on the complaint.

“We’re very happy to hear it,” said Zeke Hernandez, who filed the complaint on LULAC’s behalf. “We don’t want to see race relations explode in the future but prefer to see positive changes.”

County supervisors and a past grand juror have called LULAC’s complaint too far-reaching and inflammatory because it suggests that racial tensions in Orange County could lead to riots similar to those in Los Angeles last year.

The complaint includes a wide variety of concerns, from alleged abuse of minorities by law enforcement officials to fears that the judicial system discriminates against minorities and the poor.

Doctor will also suggest that the regional office consider the possibility of asking its a California advisory committee to schedule a public hearing on the complaint, Rivera said. The advisory panel is a volunteer board that assists the federal commission.

Doctor will also recommend at a Sept. 17 federal commission meeting that LULAC’s complaints be incorporated into a formal report being prepared in the wake of public hearings held in June on race relations in Los Angeles, Rivera said.