SBA to Close Some Offices in Cutback Move : Government: The closures are not expected to affect loan guarantee program, agency says.

The Small Business Administration, taking the first concrete steps to streamline its operations, said Tuesday that it plans to shut down offices in Santa Ana, Ventura and Fresno along with about three dozen others around the country as early as this summer.

The cutbacks are part of the Clinton Administration’s previously announced plan to reduce the size and cost of government by revamping the SBA and other agencies.

SBA officials said they do not expect the closures to have a big effect on their loan guarantee program, which has been an important source of financing in Southern California. The agency’s key business loan program, in which the SBA backs loans made by banks, will be serviced regionally from district offices in Glendale and San Diego.

But the proposed shutdown of the Santa Ana operations--one of the busiest in the nation--evoked outcry from some local lenders, who said the move would hurt their business.

“They did what?” said Robert Ucciferri, president of Bank of Yorba Linda, a small community bank that has made the most of the fast-growing SBA loan program. “My (SBA) guy is over in that office in Santa Ana three or four days a week. How’s he going to make that trip to Glendale? It’s not going to happen.”

Other lenders were not as fretful, saying that much of their contact with the agency is over the telephone and the facsimile machine.

“If this makes (the agency) more efficient, it’ll help me in the long run,” said Dale White, who heads Truckee River Bank’s SBA office in Buena Park.

Besides Santa Ana, the agency’s district offices in seven other cities will be closed, said Mike Stammler, an SBA spokesman in Washington. In addition, 28 smaller offices around the country will be closed, including one in Ventura.