A Proven Track Record

Sarah L. Catz remembers taking the bus to the beach and the shopping centers of Los Angeles hen she was a teenager.

As a college student in Washington, D.C., the subway became her mode of transportation. Today, it’s the Red Line and the Metrolink and Amtrak trains that take her to Los Angeles for meetings or lunch with her parents.

For getting around in Orange County, however, Catz drives her car. The 40-year-old Laguna Beach attorney, who is vice chairwoman of the Orange County Transportation Authority, is working to change that.

Her involvement with transportation issues began in 1982, when she moved to this county.

“I couldn’t believe how there was nothing here,” Catz recalled. “If you wanted to take the bus somewhere, it would take you an hour and a half just to go 10 miles, and it would take you in the strangest route. It was inefficient. It made no sense.”

So she contacted local officials as well as her state and federal representatives. Catz kept pushing for more and better public transportation for the county. Soon, she became a member of several citizens committees and commissions that deal with the topic.

In 1992, she became a director of the board of the Southern California Regional Rail Authority, which oversees Metrolink planning.

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A year later, Catz unanimously was elected to serve as the public’s representative on the 11-member OCTA board. The other board members include four Orange County supervisors, the mayors of Anaheim, Santa Ana, Fountain Valley and Mission Viejo and one City Council member each from Los Alamitos and Irvine.

The OCTA oversees all public transportation matters countywide, except airports and harbors. On Monday, board Chairman Robert P. Wahlstrom, a Los Alamitos councilman, will conclude his one-year stint as the head of the directors, and his replacement will be chosen.

If the directors keep with tradition, they will elevate the vice chairwoman to the post. Catz would become the first woman and first public member to head the OCTA, which was formed in June 1991.

“I’m excited to see her take over,” Wahlstrom said, adding that he plans to vote for Catz. “She’s been in Orange County transportation circles forever, I guess, and she’s done an outstanding job on the board.”

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The OCTA is a high-profile authority that handles everything from street widening and bus and train service to emergency call boxes on freeways and tax revenue earmarked for transportation. Currently, the hottest issue is light rail, and Catz has been one of its biggest proponents.

“She feels so strongly about rail,” Wahlstrom said. “I’m sure she’ll push very hard for it as chair of the OCTA, but at the same time, she’ll be fair.”

Catz said studies are being conducted to determine whether Orange County residents would use light rail.

“We’re being very careful because we’re talking about a lot of money,” she said.

In October, the OCTA authorized $6 million for preliminary engineering on a proposed $1.7-billion light rail system from Fullerton to Irvine. The system, similar to the San Diego trolley, would be funded mostly by the federal government. Local sources, such as Measure M revenue, would fund the rest. It is likely that engineering work will start this year and be complete within two years.

Then, if all goes well and further federal funds are approved, construction of the Fullerton-to-Irvine corridor could begin within a decade, officials said.

“I’m cautiously optimistic,” Catz said. “I think that if we can keep the cost down and make sure that we cover destinations such as John Wayne Airport, South Coast Plaza, Anaheim Stadium and Disneyland, it could be successful.”

In addition to rail, Catz said she strongly supports “transit-oriented development, where you build housing and retail and commercial buildings right near a train station so that people wouldn’t have to drive five miles one way to go to their dry cleaner and then five miles the other way to go to their day-care center.”

She said she began discussions of the topic with county officials earlier this decade, but discussions ceased after the 1994 bankruptcy. Now, she hopes to resurrect the talks.

But more than anything else, Catz said, “my one absolute priority” as a public member is ensuring that public transportation is provided for “people who don’t have cars and can’t drive.”

“I’ve always believed that one person can make a difference, as naive and trite as that might sound. I still believe it to this day.”

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Profile: Sarah L. Catz

Age: 40

Hometown: Los Angeles

Residence: Laguna Beach

Family: Husband, Lou Weiss, and four children, ages 2 to 17

Education: B.A. in psychology, George Washington University (Washington, D.C.), 1977; J.D., Santa Clara University School of Law, 1980; California State Bar, 1980

On transportation: “My dream is for Orange County to have the best transportation system in the West. This means that we provide efficient and convenient ways to travel to work and play and that people will have transportation choices.”

Source: Sarah L. Catz; Researched by MIMI KO CRUZ / For The Times