In any case, Moody’s endorsement will be on the winning side.

TOO MANY CHOICES: Palos Verdes Estates Councilman Michael Moody was recently listed among the Republicans who are backing the reelection of Rep. Jane Harman (D-Rolling Hills).

Trouble is, he’s also listed on the campaign letterhead of Rancho Palos Verdes Councilwoman Susan Brooks, Harman’s Republican challenger in the November election.

“I didn’t realize it was still on there,” Moody said Wednesday, adding that he has spent much of the past two months on business trips. “Really, that was my fault.”

Moody said that although he supported Brooks in the primary, he switched to Harman because he is impressed by the connections she has in Washington and her efforts to retain aerospace jobs.

“It’s the old adage: if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it,” he said. “Susan’s a very nice lady. But you can only make one choice.”

Even so, Brooks chalked up a few high-profile names to her endorsement list, including former Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, Senate minority leader Bob Dole of Kansas, Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp.

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RENEGADE CARTS: For years, the wheeled nuisances have clogged Lawndale’s sidewalks, traffic islands and gutters.

City officials estimate that hundreds of shopping carts are stolen and abandoned each month, and they worry that loose carts could cause accidents or injuries.

“The city is like a magnet for shopping carts,” complains William Woolard, director of community development.

Now, determined to get tough on the shopping-cart problem, city officials are exploring ways to remove them from public areas.

The city has considered impounding carts--which cost about $125 each--and charging stores to get them back. Since Lawndale just trimmed its work force, however, it may not have enough staff to round up all the errant carts.

Three of the largest supermarkets in Lawndale--Alpha-Beta, The Boys and Value Plus--employ a cart-retrieval service, but most abandoned carts reportedly come from stores that don’t use the service. So former councilwoman Carol Norman has suggested drafting Boy Scouts and making cart retrieval grounds for earning a merit badge.

Elsewhere, some supermarkets have guarded against wayward carts by installing concrete barriers, attaching a fifth wheel that, when activated, makes the cart turn in circles, and even adding electronic sensors that lock the wheels when a cart leaves a parking lot. But such remedies have led to problems and lawsuits, said Don Beaver, president of the California Grocers Assn.

“I don’t know what to do,” said Mike Price at the Value Plus supermarket on Hawthorne Boulevard. “If I knew, I wouldn’t be a grocery store manager, I’d be a millionaire.”

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UNDER THE SEA: For years, tourists who wanted to gaze at Avalon Bay’s marine life settled for glass-bottom boats.

Now, the Santa Catalina Island Co. is taking sightseers to the ocean’s depths.

The Starlight, a semi-submersible vessel, started sailing earlier this month in Lover’s Cove. The 36 passengers in the sub are underwater while a captain pilots the craft from a topside deck.

“We knew we needed to replace two old wooden (glass-bottom) boats,” said Joe Caliva, director of sightseeing for the Santa Catalina Island Co. “We wanted something new that no one else had.”

At least no else in Southern California. The vessel is similar to a vessel in Monterey Bay and several in Hawaii.

Visitors have spotted flying fish, horn sharks and giant lobsters.

Many visitors have never been in a sub--save for the Submarine Voyage at Disneyland.

“On opening day, people were wondering where we put the track,” he said. “We have no track. We can go anywhere.”

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“We did everything ourselves. We had something like a hair dryer to shrink-wrap the titles. On Thanksgiving, the whole family worked all day assembling the product.”

-- Rancho Palos Verdes educator Jan Davidson, on the way her family started Davidson & Associates, an educational software company that has sold 1.6 million copies of Math Blaster. J3