GOOD BENCH WARMER: Ever heard of a...

GOOD BENCH WARMER: Ever heard of a politician willing to give up power? La Habra is sending Councilman Steve Anderson to sit on the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority. But by choice, he will not cast any votes. One La Habra council member explains that the future of the base is a “war of the North versus the South” in the county, and the city wants to stay out of it. . . . Anderson doesn’t mind. “I did a real good job of sitting on the sidelines,” he says, referring to his high school athletic career.

BROWN WHO? Now that the updated version of the Brown Act, the state’s open-meetings law, has taken effect--more public speaking time, more adherence to the agenda--are meetings more accessible? Yes, but maybe a bit more confusing too. . . . In Seal Beach this week, council members constantly had to seek assurances from the city attorney that they were doing things right. “Who is this Brown guy anyway?” Mayor Gwen Forsythe quipped. “I note that the date this law took effect was April 1. “

UCI’S DAY: Three people who won the Pulitzer Prize Tuesday have ties to UC Irvine. . . . One of them is Edward Albee, above, who won the prize for drama for his play “Three Tall Women” (F4). Albee, now a three-time winner, is most famous for writing “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” . . . . He spent a week as a visiting lecturer at UC Irvine in 1983, then returned the following year to spend more than a month on the campus, working with drama students and directing the premiere here of his short play “Walking.”

UCI II: The university is also boasting about Yusef Komunyakaa, who won a Pulitzer for poetry. Komunyakaa (E3) received a Master of Fine Arts in poetry there in 1980. James McMichael, now co-director of its writing programs, taught one of his classes and remembers him as an outstanding student. Says McMichael: “The Pulitzer in poetry doesn’t always go to the best poets, but in this case it did.”. . . . The third: Michael P. Ramirez of the Memphis Commercial Appeal, for editorial cartooning. He graduated from UCI in 1984, with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts and studio painting.