LOBBY BUCKS: Orange County has been busy...

LOBBY BUCKS: Orange County has been busy making its presence felt in the state capital--with its wallet. A new state report says the county racked up a $274,000 lobbying bill during the third quarter of 1993. That three-month spree put it seventh on the list of big spenders, right up there with special interests like labor, tobacco and lawyers. . . . “It absolutely was worth it,” says Ernie Schneider, county administrative officer. The biggest lobbying boon--saving $40 million for local fire districts.

SACRED PARKING: Westminster officials insist they are friendly to churches. But some church folk are stirred up about a proposed ordinance--to affect only new churches or expansions--that would set stringent parking requirements: Generally, one parking space for every three permanent seats. Church leaders argue that that’s tougher than for nightclubs or movie houses. “It’s discriminatory,” says David Peterson, pastor of the Christ Church there. . . . Council members respond that church parking was becoming a problem.

SMART WAY: Some people play the stock market on gut instinct. Not Robert A. Haugen, UC Irvine finance professor. Writing in SmartMoney magazine this month, Haugen says: “My colleagues and I don’t pick stocks. We give the computer a problem to solve, and it tells us which stocks in our database fit the solution to the problem.” His stock outlook for ‘94? It all depends, he says, “on how corporate restructuring plays out.”

BOTTOM LINE? You’ve seen those ads: “We Will Beat Any Competitor’s Price.” But what if the competitor is right across the street? At Beach Boulevard and Lincoln Avenue in Buena Park, Circuit City and the Good Guys, competing electronic stores, have pretty much the same guarantee posted. Does that mean you can keep trotting back and forth to get a lower price? Not on your life. Says one of the managers: “Obviously we’re not going to give anything away.”