O.C. Target in Probe of Official Bias : Government: A U.S. Civil Rights Commission panel orders a formal inquiry after hearing allegations of widespread discrimination against minorities by a number of city and county bodies.

A panel of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission on Saturday ordered a formal and far-reaching inquiry into allegations that minorities in Orange County routinely face discrimination from numerous agencies of city and county government.

After its first public session in Orange County in a quarter-century, the commission’s California Advisory Committee scheduled a fact-finding hearing, probably for some time in March.

The targets of wide-ranging complaints aired at a public hearing Saturday include the county’s Superior and Municipal Court bench and the Orange County Grand Jury; police departments that keep mug shot books of suspected gang members; municipal code enforcement officials who have targeted minority tenants and street vendors, and a host of other government agencies.

“Obviously, there were some real issues raised here that we have to look at,” said Fernando A. Hernandez, professor of education at Cal State Los Angeles, and the federal advisory committee member who made a motion to launch the inquiry. “Certainly the allegations raised are serious enough that we can’t just drop this.”

The decision was greeted with elation by leaders of Latino rights groups and about 20 others who gathered for the three-hour hearing to voice their concerns that Orange County’s Latinos, African Americans and Asian Americans face both subtle and overt racism here.

“I think this validates our concerns,” said Zeke Hernandez, former state director of the League of United Latin American Citizens, whose written complaints to the commission prompted Saturday’s hearing. “People paint us as gadflies (and) activists, but this forces the issue into focus.”

Leaders of the agencies accused of discrimination, who were not invited to speak at Saturday’s hearing, will have the right to voluntarily testify at the fact-finding session or could face federal subpoenas that would compel them to do so.

If the advisory panel concludes that violations of federal civil rights law exist in Orange County, it would forward its findings to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. That panel could refer violations to federal agencies for enforcement as needed.

Violations could ultimately lead to loss of federal funding for local agencies or legal action against them.

Many government officials could not be reached Saturday to rebut comments made at the hearing. Some were unaware the session was even being held.

Orange County Supervisor William G. Steiner said Saturday he was unable to discuss the discrimination issue in depth. But he added that a recent dispute over minority representation on a county panel planning a new health care program for Medi-Cal patients left him feeling that some minorities are not meeting county officials halfway.

“Our office made extraordinary efforts to reach out to the minority community . . . and got no response,” he said. “It seems to me you can’t complain about being excluded from the process unless you’re part of the process. In our case, we simply did not get a response.”

Members of the 18-person advisory panel repeatedly noted Saturday that a decision to hold a formal hearing does not mean the allegations are valid. The panel includes educators, attorneys and others, including one representative from Orange County.

“At this point, we don’t have any evidence before us,” said Philip Montez, director of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission’s western regional office, which covers 10 states. “We haven’t heard the other side yet.”

Montez said he sensed some “officialdom resistance” when talking to local government authorities prior to the hearing. Montez said the panel will seek the power to issue federal subpoenas--a common request in such inquiries, he said--to individuals who resist answering questions.

The allegations aired Saturday included complaints that there are too few minorities on the Orange County bench and the county grand jury, which critics alleged results in biased treatment of minority defendants.

Other speakers claimed that housing and health code enforcement officials in Santa Ana and other areas practice “selective enforcement” when minority tenants or street vendors are involved.

“If discrimination is action by a body that prohibits the work of a particular group of people, you have a classic case here,” Amin David, president of Los Amigos of Orange County, a Latino rights group, told the panel, in asking for a full-scale hearing.

An Asian American mother from Fountain Valley recalled her sons being stopped by police to be photographed and included in a so-called “gang book”--a police tactic that a state appeals court recently ruled illegal.

“Who can determine what a gang member dresses like?” asked parent JoAnn Kanshige of the Alliance Working for Asian Rights & Empowerment. “When whites wear (stereotypical gang clothing) it’s a fashion statement. When Latinos wear it, they’re gangs. It’s discrimination.”

Other critics said local and county government continues to ignore the growing minority community, which they predicted will make up the majority of Orange County’s population in the future. Activists said Saturday they want to protect Orange County from the kind of racial unrest Los Angeles has seen.

Saturday’s hearing was prompted by a written complaint to the Civil Rights Commission from the state and local branches of LULAC, which covered more than 20 issues. At the advisory panel’s request, LULAC narrowed its complaints to four main categories before Saturday’s hearing.

The categories covered complaints about the judicial system, police harassment, housing and health code enforcement, and government representation.

The issues discussed Saturday had provoked smoldering resentment within the county’s minority community, activists said, but were vented after public outrage followed a June report by the Orange County Grand Jury that blamed immigrants for many of society’s woes.

An ongoing investigation by the State Commission on Judicial Performance into complaints that many minority defendants in Orange County Municipal Court were systematically denied their rights to due process was also mentioned Saturday and will be examined by the fact-finding panel.

The Orange County public defender’s office, which raised the issue, declined to attend Saturday’s hearing pending the outcome of the state investigation.

“This has certainly been an education experience,” said Socorro Reynaga-Olsen of Orange, a marketing consultant and the only advisory committee member from Orange County, said after the hearing. “I’m very pleased that we will be coming back to take a look.”

Los Angeles attorney Michael C. Carney, chairman of the advisory committee, said that some of the complaints might be better addressed by those doing the complaining.

Carney said Gov. Pete Wilson has appointed Latino judges elsewhere in the state, and suggested that local activists might have more influence if they were to lobby for those seeking judicial appointments.

A civil rights commission panel made its last stop in Orange County in 1968, when it heard testimony that minority children were being assigned excessively to classes for mentally retarded children. Evidence presented at the hearings eventually led to statewide reform.