Rehearsing With Prop. 49? Maybe He’ll Be Back

Arnold Schwarzenegger -- box office to ballot box. There’s a lot at stake for the brawn-and-bratwurst-born action hero, whose Prop. 49 gets its out-of-town tryout across California next Tuesday.

It’s Schwarzenegger’s baby -- perhaps, it’s muttered, his first real stab at public policy before running for public office. And it would take more than half a billion dollars each year out of the state’s general fund for before- and after-school programs. This is the same pretty unstocked pot that the state has been scraping the bottom of this year to try to fund health and safety and other existing programs; Schwarzenegger says not to worry: “Revenue growth” will make up the difference.

But there’s another multimillion-dollar expenditure to which Schwarzenegger is just saying “nein.”

An avant-garde art forum in his Austrian hometown of Graz wants to put up a 60-plus-foot-tall Terminator monument, sketched out by Russian artists, of the hometown hero posing Atlas-like with a globe on his shoulders.

Price: more than $4 million. In a letter to the statue enthusiasts, he described himself as “very flattered and honored that such a monument would be considered” but suggested the money “be used for much more important efforts,” such as charity.

Which, as we all know, begins at home.

Fruits of Victory for City Boy Simon

When a reporter from a Central Valley newspaper sandbagged Bill Simon with the agricultural equivalent of the “how much does a gallon of milk cost” question often posed to (male) candidates, Simon scored 20%.

But hey, who knew? At an exhibit at the Central Valley’s Heritage Complex in Tulare about the difference between fruits and vegetables, a Sacramento Bee columnist asked Simon which of the following is a fruit: cucumbers, peppers, squash, corn and tomatoes. Simon guessed cucumbers. Technically, all five are fruits, so clip this and put it on the refrigerator for whoever is telling you to eat your vegetables.

Nonetheless, Simon has received the endorsement of the vast California Farm Bureau Federation. It praised his understanding of “the complex issues facing our industry [and] the value of our farming community in the state’s economy,” but did not pose any trick animal-vegetable-fruit-mineral questions.

Capitol Expose at X-Ray Machine

A clear case of X-ray vision. New security screening at the state Capitol began requiring virtually everyone and everything to be X-rayed, including brown-bag lunches. “I’ll show you a million items you can put in a baloney sandwich that will hurt people, kill people, maim people or blow people up,” said Tony Beard Jr., the Senate’s sergeant-at-arms, in the Capitol Morning Report.

(It’s like the old file-in-the-cake trick in prison movies ... but then again, the stuff baloney’s made of may already pose its own hazards.)

Some Capitol workers got to worrying that this was like having their food irradiated -- which Beard says it is not -- so a compromise was arrived at: Anything that can be adequately inspected in a clear container, a plastic bag or bottle, can bypass the zapper.

A lot of people may take the new security personally, says Beard, “and I understand that -- we’re checking them although they’ve been here 25 years.” Is anybody exempt? “The governor will probably walk around it,” says Beard. “The thing with the governor is, he’s with a protective detail and we defer to them ....The [staff and security] people with him will walk through it.”

The state Senate signs Beard’s paycheck, and state Senate President John Burton, a very recognizable and prickly character, is therefore Beard’s boss.

“If John Burton walks around it,” Beard acknowledges, “I’m not gonna tell John Burton to walk through it. He’s not a threat ... [but] he certainly complies with it, and he realizes his role -- he’s pretty good about it.”

Who’s Standing Between Chief and City Attorney?

What city attorney of California’s biggest city has had, as of last reports, no -- repeat no -- face time with new LAPD Chief Bill Bratton, meaning the city of Los Angeles’ top prosecutor has not yet met with the city’s new top cop?

Could it be that the mayor of Los Angeles is keeping his new appointee joined at the hip, considering that the city attorney, Rocky Delgadillo, is being bruited about as a possible candidate for mayor himself?

Points Taken

* In the category “Secession,” the answer is “Alex Trebek,” and the question is: “What quiz show host, who lives in Studio City, gave $100 to the San Fernando secession movement?”

* History-minded David Gershwin, the spokesman for L.A. City Council President Alex Padilla, finds it noteworthy that election day, Nov. 5, the day the city votes on whether to endorse the San Fernando Valley’s insurrection, is Guy Fawkes Day in Great Britain -- commemorating the day in 1605 that Fawkes and his band tried to blow up Parliament, a plot that was foiled. The jingle recited ever since: “Remember, remember/the fifth of November/gunpowder, treason and plot.”

* How good was the World Series for Orange County? The Nixon Library’s press release about its Johnny Cash exhibit informed the press that the Yorba Linda library is just “15 minutes from Anaheim Stadium.”

* In the four years since he died in a skiing accident, Sonny Bono has had his name appended to a 40-mile stretch of Interstate 10, a wildlife refuge at the Salton Sea, and now an airport concourse -- the Sonny Bono Concourse, at Palm Springs International Airport.

* Who was that mystery guest? During a Fox TV showing of a World Series game in Anaheim, the camera kept cutting to Disney’s jefe, Michael Eisner, and identifying him as such, but no mention was made of the man next to him -- Gov. Gray Davis.

* Ballpark bets: Anaheim area Reps. Chris Cox and Loretta Sanchez made the standard World Series wagers, Disney tickets against the wine and chocolates bet by San Francisco Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Tom Lantos. Ah, but then Cox upped the ante, offering to sing “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” while wearing a tie-dyed shirt and flowers in his hair (from the sappy 1960s song that goes in part, “If you’re goin’ to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair”). And Lantos countered that he would sing “Back in the Saddle Again,” the theme song of the Angels’ late owner, Gene Autry, while kitted out in cowboy hat, holsters and pistols. Sanchez and Pelosi agreed to sing harmony. Surely someone will record this for posterity?

* Gary Mendoza gave up his choice post as a young attorney at a white-shoe law firm in 1988 to work for his pal, Rep. Chris Cox. Now Cox returns the favor, becoming the single biggest contributor in Mendoza’s run for state insurance commissioner. Cox gave the Republican Mendoza $25,000, and a $100,000 loan. Mendoza got another $20,000 from his former law partner, ex-L.A. Mayor Dick Riordan.

You Can Quote Me

“Mr. Bradbury, you are a cowardly, lying D.A.!”

Ventura County gadfly Carroll Dean Williams, unforgiving to the last, at a Ventura County Board of Supervisors meeting, where Williams took his parting shot at retiring Ventura County Dist. Atty. Mike Bradbury, who has spent 24 years on the job and has been a favored target for Williams’ ferocity. After his on-the-record blast, Williams walked to Bradbury with a request for copies of public records, then paused, and handed them instead to Bradbury’s successor, Greg Totten. Bradbury slapped Totten heartily (and relievedly) on the back.

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CAMPAIGN TRAIL GEAR: Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon Jr., sporting a lei on a recent San Diego stop, signs a surfboard for a charity auction after speaking engagement with former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Meanwhile, Gov. Gray Davis, far right with California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, left, and case work lab director Gary Sim, wears less festive attire during a tour of the DNA Database Crime Lab in Richmond for a review of the state’s DNA Cold Hit program.

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Patt Morrison’s columns appear Mondays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail address is patt.morrison@latimes.com. This week’s contributors include Patrick McGreevy, Jean O. Pasco and Kay Saillant.