This Song Goes Out to All the Propositions Out There

Political sing-alongs were as outdated as “Happy Days are Here Again,” but now the California Voter Foundation has on its Web site an animated tune, “The Proposition Song,” romping through every measure on the March 7 ballot, like:

“Prop Twelve is a bond act, it helps parks around the state,

“Then Prop Thirteen--not that Thirteen; that was nineteen seventy-eight.”

“It’s the Proposition Song! Let’s all be singing along! Cuz the ballot is too darn long!”

CVF founder Kim Alexander is the tunesmith and lyricist; the ditty will never get her into ASCAP, but it can be found at https://www.calvoter.org, tra la tra la.

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Black and blue pages? Battered women’s shelters go to great lengths to conceal their addresses as a matter of safety, but somehow the address of a Bay Area shelter appeared in the 1998 phone book.

At least three husbands of battered women showed up at its doorstep as a result, according to the shelter. Since then, the shelter has changed its name and added security.

And, “as a direct result of the Pac Bell’s publication of the address,” according to court papers, the shelter “instituted a policy of not allowing women whose batterers have a history of extreme violence to stay at the shelter.”

A Pacific Bell spokesman said the firm has offered to pay expenses related to the error; the shelter is asking $1 million in damages.

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Paper tigers: Two powerful men who once engaged in a tussle may become colleagues. Clint Reilly, failed San Francisco mayoral candidate and far more successful (and accordingly wealthy) campaign consultant, is in the running to buy the San Francisco Examiner.

Reilly is not an unknown quantity at the afternoon paper. One day in 1993, he went in to chat with the paper’s publisher and its executive editor, Phil Bronstein. Reilly wound up with a broken ankle, though nothing was ever established about who started what. (It did emerge that Reilly took testosterone injections for a hormone imbalance.)

Now, Reilly, who has asked the Hearst Corp. to consider a revenue-sharing deal, might end up as Bronstein’s boss. A poll that appeared briefly on the paper’s Web site asked readers what would become of the paper under Reilly; 77% said it would be dead in a month, 7% said it would be a plaything for Bronstein and his wife, actor Sharon Stone.

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No Republican cloth coats: From one dolled-up Barbie in Pat Nixon’s 1969 inaugural gown has grown a collection of 115, arrayed in eensy-weensy first lady ensembles, all on display at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda.

The dress-up duds range from Martha Washington to Hillary Rodham Clinton, with a slight detour for the women who assisted fathers and uncles at 1600 Pennsylvania. Here are Martha Washington in salmon-pink silk faille adorned with insects and wildflowers, clotheshorse Mary Todd Lincoln in purple velvet piped in white satin, and Dolley Madison, whose portrait is in the background, in Empire satin coat and gown embroidered with butterflies. Unlike the first ladies--or any ladies for that matter--one size fits all.

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Roger, over and out: Roger Hedgecock, former San Diego mayor turned radio talk show host, has a new restaurant on San Diego’s 5th Avenue. He named it “Roger’s On Fifth.”

Fitting moniker, even apart from the location: At his first trial in 1985 on conspiracy and perjury charges, Hedgecock testified and the jury hung 11 to 1 for conviction. At his second trial, he took the 5th and was convicted. Hedgecock’s lawyer the second time around: Oscar Goodman, now mayor of Las Vegas.

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One offs: A Bay Area billionaire dog lover funded the project, and now Wired magazine reports that Texas researchers are on the verge of being able to clone canines. . . . San Diego officials blame a procedural error that let a developer bulldoze Mira Mesa wetlands that were home to three endangered species. . . . San Francisco law enforcement officers will undergo sensitivity training in handling the “transgendered,” people undergoing or completing a sex change.

EXIT LINE

“It was a nice place, but that’s ridiculous.”

--UC Berkeley junior Bergin Tan, one of several prospective tenants for a scarce $900-a-month studio apartment, after he learned that he had to write an essay to be in the running to rent the place. Housing costs have risen since last year’s repeal of rent control.

California Dateline appears every other Tuesday.

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California Oranges

The 1999-2000 California forecast for navel oranges is 80 million cartons, up 90% over last season’s freeze-damaged yield. A carton contains 37.5 pounds of oranges. Here are 1998-99 figures for the eight California counties that produce the most oranges:

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Tons of Total value County navel oranges to growers Tulare 822,000 $326.8 million Kern 399,000 $181.6 million Fresno 260,700 $91.7 million Riverside 60,251 $14.8 million San Bernardino 24,740 $7 million San Diego 20,166 $5.4 million Ventura 13,532 $3.8 million Orange 91 $30,000 State total 1.6 million $631.3 million

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Sources: California Agricultural Statistics Service, county agricultural commissioners’ data, 1998

Researched by TRACY THOMAS/Los Angeles Times