TRY NEXT DOOR: The Brea Olinda Unified...

TRY NEXT DOOR: The Brea Olinda Unified School District had $8.8 million tied up in the county pool, with the riskiest securities sold by the Wall Street investment firm Merrill Lynch. So no surprise the response by its board member, Susie D. Sokol, when she recently got separate telephone calls from two of its brokers--asking if she’d be interested in having Merrill Lynch invest her personal funds. . . . Sokol told one: “With the job you did with Orange County, I really don’t think so. Thank you very much.”

FRIEND OR FOE? Rep. Ron Packard (R-Oceanside) makes frank his opposition to illegal immigrants in the latest Republican Associates newsletter--comparing them to this winter’s rains. . . . “There is little we can do to prevent the rains passing from the Pacific into California,” Packard states. “There is much we can do to prevent the stream of people passing illegally over our borders.” . . . Responds Santa Ana Latino activist Zeke Hernandez: “Packard is sowing the seeds of hatred, disguising it as his concern. It truly is a slap against all humanity.”

SUNSHINE GIRL: If you have a theme like “Let It Shine,” you need a good poster about sunshine. Orange County arts leaders have chosen 6-year-old Karen Tsai’s brightly colored pastel as the official poster for the upcoming 10th anniversary of their Imagination Celebration festival. (B2) Countywide arts events run from April 22 through May 7. . . . Karen, daughter of Shu and Yu-Li Tsai of Irvine, competed against 500 other entrants, including high school art students.

IT’LL BE A GAS: How do you get people excited about buying natural gas? You build up your company’s credibility with “a strategic marketing campaign,” says Southern California Gas Co. spokesman Rick Morrow. That’s why the next “Taste of Orange County,” the annual music and food festival scheduled for June, now becomes “The Gas Company’s Taste of Orange County.” . . . Adds Morrow: “We are interested in getting face-to-face with our residential consumers.”