Assemblyman Richter to the Nonpartisan Rescue

And the award for Best Use of a State-Issued Vehicle goes to . . . Assemblyman Bernie Richter.

The Chico Republican was driving up California 99 in his official Ford Crown Victoria last month when an ancient Chrysler sedan passed him, speeding and weaving. Richter was on the phone to 911 to report a possible drunk driver when the Chrysler accordioned into a concrete abutment and caught fire. The assemblyman doused the flames with a fire extinguisher and, assisted by another passerby, pulled the man from the smoldering car and covered him with a blanket as the CHP arrived.

This week, Richter--a maverick conservative whose floor speeches can be pretty fiery themselves--was given a community service award by the CHP. Even before the accident, he had introduced a bill to reevaluate ways to keep drunk drivers off the road. The man he rescued faces just such charges.

Richter was just four miles outside his district line when he saw the smashup; “I pulled the guy out, and I didn’t even check his registration,” he mused, amused. “He might have been a Democrat.”

Tying the Knot

Cupid has a dismal record in California: Only three other states have a lower marriage rate. Here are the five states with the highest and lowest rates in 1994, the most recent year for which figures are available. The national rate that year was 9.1.

*--*

No. of marriages Rate per 1,000 pop. 1. Nevada 140,325 96.3 2. Arkansas 38,169 15.6 3. Tennessee 80,030 15.5 4. Hawaii 17,927 15.2 5. South Carolina 50,872 13.9 46. New Jersey 52,776 6.7 47. California 202,827 6.5 48. Pennsylvania 75,512 6.3 49. Washington 43,557 6.2 50. West Virginia 10,946 6.0

*--*

Source: National Center for Health Statistics

Researched by TRACY THOMAS / Los Angeles Times

*

Brushwork: First it was Art, then it was--Gone.

Three years after one of her two murals for the Fresno Art Museum was painted over, Kingsburg artist Maxine Olson will be paid $10,000 by the museum--not for her artwork, but for its obliteration.

One of the two murals detailing an Aztec Eden populated by innocents at play was painted over within a year, when an exhibit called “Earth, Wind and Fire” went on display. The vivid colors and 10-foot height of the mural, said the then-museum director of the then-paint job, “confused visitors.” (Perhaps as Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper” makes visitors hungry.)

The settlement of Olson’s federal lawsuit, under the state’s Art Preservation Act and the federal Visual Artists Rights Act, also includes an agreement that the museum notify her if it wants to change any of the surviving mural.

*

Wet if by land, wetter if by sea: Since last week, Northern Californians might have taken a look at this picture--of a green sea turtle a-twirl in the million-gallon indoor ocean at the Monterey Bay Aquarium--and sworn they were the ones underwater.

For creatures of the land who suddenly found themselves at sea in the rainstorms, the Peninsula Humane Society in San Mateo has a disaster prep checklist for pets, on how to pack ahead for fleeing the rising waters of the current disaster, or the rumbling ground of a future one. Oh, sure, food you’d remember--but vaccination records? Rectal thermometer? And among the list of supplies, a newspaper, for reasons having nothing to do with the news. . . .

*

One-offs: Guess who’s coming to study group? Independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s daughter Carolyn will be enrolling at Stanford, a year behind Bill Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea. . . . The U.S. Forest Service wants volunteers for its Valentine’s Day bird count of Big Bear’s bald eagles--birds of prey that mate, monogamously, for life. . . . Two United Way billboards thanking the people of San Joaquin County for their generosity were mistakenly put up in Stanislaus County. . . . A San Francisco man whose mother journeyed from Nebraska to bail him out of jail on holdup charges was arrested again less than three hours later on suspicion of robbery by officers who said he hadn’t even removed his jail ID bracelet yet.

EXIT LINE

Let’s start the day,

Like the old way,

With a breakfast that’s OK,

Now that Prop. 208 says we may.

--Verse on invitation to a $500-a-plate fund-raising breakfast, from the reelection campaign of Assemblyman Dick Ackerman (R-Fullerton). A federal judge recently set aside Proposition 208’s fund-raising limits as approved by voters, opening the fund-raising floodgates to high-priced spreads.

*

California Dateline appears every other Friday.