<i> Snapshots of life in the Golden State.</i> : Forget Issues, Just Tell Us if Mercury’s in Retrograde

Astrology guided Bob Citron in making Orange County’s investments and Nancy Reagan in making her husband’s schedule.

And mere weeks before election day, this solicitation from a San Diego astrology service was faxed to the Sacramento office of Lt. Gov. Gray Davis:

“Seeking reelection? Knowing, in advance, the basic moods motivating specific audiences can be a strong advantage . . . the influences attributed to astrology are extremely subtle and suprising (sic) strong. They impact peoples (sic) emotions at very deep levels . . . if you rearrange the topic or theme at a speaking engagement because we warn of an adverse time or day, that’s not very much trouble considering the boost you will get by going with THE FLOW OF ASTROLOGY SURGES.”

One small question: Why hire an astrology firm that can’t see far enough into the future to realize that Davis isn’t a candidate for anything this year?

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Voter Sign-Up Rebounds

The percentage of eligible citizens registered to vote in California is almost back to what it was when President Ronald Reagan was reelected in 1984. Here are the numbers for the last six general elections and the latest count available for this year.

Total Registered % to Vote

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Year to Vote* to Vote 1984 16,582,000 78.84 1986 17,561,000 73.08 1988 19,052,000 73.51 1990 19,245,000 70.03 1992 20,864,000 72.38 1994 18,946,000 77.71 10/7/96 19,526,991 80.21

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* U.S. citizens in the state, 18 and over, minus prisoners and parolees

Source: California Secretary of State’s Office

Researched by TRACY THOMAS / Los Angeles Times

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Death and taxes and taxes and taxes: Ever since San Francisco banned public cemeteries 82 years ago because its land is too valuable and too scarce, nearby Colma has had a thriving business in cemeteries, 16 at last count, and none of them paying taxes.

The town’s underground population is a very cool million. Above ground, it’s about 1,000, and some of them are pushing to institute a death tax of $5 for every grave, every year, forever. Such assessments are against state law, but retired cabdriver Robert Simcox thinks it’s worth a try, when three-fourths of the 2.2-square-mile town is gone to graveyards.

Failing that, they might consider the tourist option: There must be something marketable in the last resting places of notables such as Wyatt Earp, Levi Strauss and William Randolph Hearst.

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Fat cats and big dogs: Ernest the 110-pound Bernese mountain dog has been denied write-in qualification for the 17th Congressional District of Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz counties.

And Alan Robbins, a former Democratic state senator and more recently an alumnus of 20 months in federal prison on a racketeering plea, has been told his money is no good in certain quarters of Sacramento.

Ernest, a Redding native, has a $20,000 campaign chest managed by his best friend, a basset hound named Calvin. His NPP candidacy--No Particular Party--is the way his human being, the president of a computer technology firm, is choosing to express his disgust with the political system.

Robbins has spent his days since he left prison speaking against special interest money in politics. He even paid off his $15,000 “deadbeat debt” campaign violation fine to the Fair Political Practices Commission.

But when Robbins mailed a $250 check to Californians for Political Reform, the sponsors of Proposition 208, which would limit campaign contributions to candidates and prohibit lobbyists from making donations, the committee sent it back.

Said Tony Miller, the campaign’s executive director: “There’s a certain taint to it. Given his history, it was an ill-gotten gain.”

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One-offs: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says owners of that city’s Pabst brewery, who will be shutting down the 19th-century beer plant as unprofitable, gave $138,755 to California politicians over the past two years. . . . A Sacramento murder defendant allegedly bludgeoned a 14-year-old girl to death because she reminded him of a girlfriend who had just dumped him. . . . Actor Woody Harrelson’s Kentucky court date on marijuana charges was postponed to accommodate Beattyville’s annual Woolly Worm Festival.

EXIT LINE

“I think they got a break in the weather and they bailed with little notice.”

--Guy Towers, president of the St. George Reef Lighthouse Preservation Society, the new caretaker of the 104-year-old Crescent City lighthouse, abandoned by the Coast Guard in 1975. Society members found coffee mugs, a stocked pantry and 21-year-old Newsweek magazines chronicling the equally hasty U.S. exodus from Vietnam. Quoted in the Eureka Times-Standard.

California Dateline appears every other Friday.