N. Carolina Pays a Call on Taco Bell : Fast food: Gov. Hunt joins courters seeking to lure company’s corporate headquarters if it moves.

North Carolina Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. traveled to Orange County on Thursday to make a “courtesy call” on executives at Taco Bell, which is considering a relocation of its 900-person corporate staff.

Hunt on Monday opened a North Carolina business recruitment office in the Bay Area that is charged with luring West Coast-based high-technology businesses to the Tar Heel State. Hunt spent most of this past week lobbying Hollywood movie executives on the benefits of making movies in his state.

Taco Bell shocked local civic boosters in September by announcing that its corporate headquarters staff might relocate from Irvine--possibly outside California. That announcement drew intense interest from a number of states and cities, and Taco Bell already has talked with development officials in Atlanta, Dallas and North Carolina.

“They’re being courted by many states,” said Jacquie Ellis, executive vice president of the Irvine Chamber of Commerce. “I’ve heard that a governor from another state made a personal call (to Taco Bell executives) and that out-of-state economic development people at the highest levels are calling.”

Development officials in California responded to that interstate courting by creating a so-called “red team” that is encouraging Taco Bell to remain in the state. Taco Bell has indicated that employees should know their eventual fate as early as next March.

Hunt met with several top executives at Taco Bell’s 12-story headquarters building, where it leases 280,000 square feet through November, 1996, and joined company executives for lunch at a nearby Taco Bell restaurant, company spokeswoman Janis Smith said. “I’d describe it as a courtesy call,” Smith said.

North Carolina officials declined to comment on Hunt’s Taco Bell visit. Hunt and North Carolina Commerce Secretary Dave Phillips “were in the Los Angeles area to meet with movie studio heads, including Paramount and Disney,” said Phillips spokeswoman Angie Harris. “And they did make time for some industrial prospect calls.”