Stationery Hints Brown Expects to Be Stationary : <i> Snapshots of life in the Golden State.</i>

Obviously he’s just being thrifty with the office stationery. Why else would Willie Brown send out a press release under the letterhead of the “Speaker of the Assembly” when he has not held that title since Dec. 5? (As the senior assemblyman, though, Brown is still the body’s presiding officer.) This news release declared that “anyone wearing white sneakers and/or cutoffs will not be permitted on the Assembly floor.” Such sartorial shortcomings would surely detract from the gravitas we’ve seen so much of lately from that august body.

The State Tax Bite

Half of all state tax revenues are collected by just nine states, and California topped the list in 1992. States collected $328.5 billion that year, up 5.6% from 1991. Here are the 10 states that collected the most state taxes in 1992.

State Taxes (in billions) 1.California $46.1 2.New York $30.1 3.Texas $17.0 4.Pennsylvania $16.3 5.Florida $14.5 6.Illinois $13.5 7.New Jersey $12.8 8.Ohio $12.1 9.Michigan $11.3 10.Massachusetts $9.9

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Researched by TRACY THOMAS/Los Angeles Times

No dough, so does must die: The Pill is too expensive, but they can still afford bullets. For two years, contraceptive inoculations have kept down the deer population at Fremont’s Coyote Hills Regional Park, but rangers now find it too expensive and time-consuming, so they’ll put down the hypodermic and go back to the gun. The 976-acre park can support only about 80 deer, and they now number about 100; the remaining 20 will become venison, and the meat will be donated to charity.

Development has cut into grazing turf. “This is one of those tragedies of urbanization,” said environmentalist Donna Olsen. “When people meet wildlife, unfortunately people win and the wildlife loses out.”

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Out there: A Tehachapi group that claims ties to a space alien has been sued by three people who want back the money they loaned to the group. The federal suit accuses the Phoenix Institute for Research and Education and a dozen individuals of taking lenders’ money (more than $820,000) and refusing to pay it back.

The group owns a farm in Tehachapi, manufactures bread machines and publishes an anti-government apocalyptic newspaper called Contact. Its leaders claim to be in contact with an extraterrestrial called Commander Hatonn, who is not named in the suit.

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The very old boy network: At last, the Sons of the American Revolution’s California branch has something besides a branch.

Until now, a tree in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, which legend holds was grown from a cutting of a tree under which Gen. George Washington addressed his troops, has been the state’s most tangible link to the War for Independence.

The national organization has finally said go ahead and put up a plaque in Sonoma’s Mountain Cemetery to 11-year-old colonial William Smith, a mate on a ship during the Revolution.

Smith died here 67 years later, in 1846, a month before the Bear Flag Revolt that led to the United States’ taking of California.

California’s Daughters of the American Revolution beat the men to the punch 30 years ago with their own plaque on the cemetery wall to honor Smith, whose unmarked grave might be under the cemetery’s asphalt driveway.

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Oh, Canada! The Great White North’s premier newspaper, the Toronto Star, has waxed wroth about California’s election bewailing Proposition 187, Proposition 184 (the “three strikes” measure), and voters’ rejection of single-payer health care, a gas tax boost for public transit and bonds for a passenger rail system.

“It’s often been said that California is at the cutting edge of North American culture. They can keep it.”

Perhaps it’s time to boycott Canadian culture. Can anyone think of any?

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Three zaps and you’re out: California never has employed the electric chair, but an accused cop killer got the electric belt, and he hasn’t even been tried yet. A sheriff’s guard in a Bakersfield courtroom accidentally triggered a 50,000-volt security belt strapped around the waist of Bruce Sons, accused of killing CHP Officer Richard Alan Maxwell. The force of the voltage knocked Sons to his knees before deputies could unbelt him. Will he be billed by the kilowatt-hour?

EXIT LINE

“We could be cynical and say they don’t want poor people in there. But in higher-income communities, these things are incremental. Some of us may not see it as a courageous step, but really it was.”

--Charles Chew, manager of Santa Clara County’s housing program, lauding the wealthy city of Los Altos Hills for its adroit handling of a requirement to build affordable housing by funding a homeless shelter--two cities away, in Mountain View.

California Dateline appears every other Friday.