No Flat Tax Means No Flattened Fauna

Among the Californians who are relieved that Steve Forbes and his no-fuss-return flat tax got a scant 8% of the primary election vote are the riparian brush rabbit, the Sonoma sunshine, the Colorado squawfish, the wolverine (Gulo gulo) and the rest of California’s 288 endangered species.

The tally is just in, and Line 50 on last year’s state tax return put $561,150 into the state’s endangered species fund.

The single largest contribution was $37,500, from someone in the 90011 ZIP Code, a zone bounded by downtown, the Santa Monica Freeway, the Harbor Freeway and Slauson Avenue, a region where the only thing not endangered is concrete. The givingest area was in Davis, ZIP Code of 95616, home to 559 donors. In sum, 70,724 Californians gave an average of $7.93 each, and half of them have adjusted gross incomes below $27,500.

Lest you think that releasing 1995 figures about the 1994 tax year is crazy, remember the fox. Slyly, these numbers were released this week, just as people sit down in earnest with their 1040s for 4/15/1996.

California Tickets

Here are the top ten moving violations issued by the California Highway Patrol in 1994, the most recent year for which statistics are available.

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Moving Number of Rank Violation Citations 1. Speeding 977,519 2. Drunk driving 97,626 3. Stop lights 28,951 4. Stop signs 26,924 5. Following too close 25,721 6. Wrong side of road 23,598 7. Changing lanes 19,396 8. Improper passing 16,137 9. Improper turning 14,299 10. Impeding right of way 11,858

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Source: California Highway Patrol, Sacramento

Researched by TRACY THOMAS / Los Angeles Times

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Hold the anchovies, hold the holdups: The supervisor’s grandson wanted pizza. The company wouldn’t deliver to his street. Guess what happened next.

San Francisco Supervisor Willie Kennedy is suggesting an ordinance that would refuse licenses to pizza makers, cab companies and other businesses for redlining their services--refusing customers who live in certain neighborhoods.

Pizza delivery drivers are indeed sometimes waylaid, or plagued by false orders to set up the employee for a robbery. A driver was shot in a housing project last year, and Domino’s has not delivered there since. “We’ve had guys go after us with sticks and knives. They’ve come after us with a 2-by-4,” said pizza franchise owner David Wilcox.

“That kind of thing can put you out of business if you have a murder on your record.”

Kennedy, whose grandson lives in a private house on a new street not listed in the pizza shop’s index, figures: “We regulate everybody else in this city. I certainly think we can regulate this.”

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The goose is loose: It’s a flying boat that’s traveled more by water than by air, and three years after it was barged from Long Beach to Oregon, the Spruce Goose still sits in pieces--wings, thighs, drumsticks--waiting for a home in a promised air history museum. The plans have been fiscally frustrated by the debts and defaults of Del Smith, the aviation tycoon who bought the wooden boat that Howard Hughes built and ferried it from its place alongside the Queen Mary in Long Beach to near McMinnville, Ore.

Eight stories tall, with the wingspan of a football field including the end zones, the craft was made of wood to save on wartime metals. It flew just once, for 49 seconds in in 1947. Hughes, who reputedly hated the “Spruce Goose” nickname, inscribed a photo of its sole flight, “I hope that some day Long Beach will regard this plane with a certain amount of pride.”

Smith praised the singular wooden airship, then added, with an incendiary choice of adjective, “We still have a burning desire to build a museum.”

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Next, sperm limits? Four of the victorious candidates in Tuesday’s election for Assembly seats are relatives of veteran California politicians (do the names “Moretti” and “Alquist” sound familiar?) But six of the blood-is-thicker-than-Colorado-River-water candidates (Alioto, Dymally and such) lost.

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One offs: If prison populations weren’t counted, the Census Bureau found that Placer County would be leading California for population growth rate; factor in the felons and Imperial and Madera Counties come out ahead. . . . On the worst possible day for such an error, a mistakenly downloaded computer file printed two wrong endorsements for state legislative candidates in the Oakland Tribune--on election day. . . . San Francisco is inviting “hearty” (their spelling) survivors of the San Francisco Quake and Fire of 1906 to celebrate its 90th anniversary on April 18 by, among other festivities, painting gold the fire hydrant that saved the Dolores mission. . . . Seventy percent of Mariposa County’s voters chose to abolish the constable’s job but a majority still reelected the current constable.

EXIT LINE

“This is your future boyfriend.”

--A 9-year-old Simi Valley boy holding a pickle, to a fourth-grade girl whose parents are alleging that the gherkin remark was the latest in three months of harassment by the boy.

California Dateline appears every other Friday.