Countywide : A Global Answer to Local Issues

Democratic Sen. Alan Cranston offered a global answer to some of Orange County’s most pressing local problems Tuesday, suggesting that reforms in the Soviet Union might translate into new highways, trauma centers and city police officers in California.

In a daylong, campaign-style tour of Orange County, Cranston reminded his audiences that the federal government can’t pay for such local needs right now because it is broke. But, he said, it could find more money in its defense budget if it can cut back on the weaponry aimed at the Soviet Union in light of the radical changes recently throughout the Communist world.

“We don’t have the enemy in the Soviet Union we thought we had,” he told a group of developers and housing officials meeting in Santa Ana to discuss the homeless crisis. “Yet we are spending $300 billion a year on the military budget--$200 billion of it because of the Soviet Union.”

The changes in Poland, Hungary, East Germany, China and the Soviet Union “could free up untold tens of billions of dollars for the things you need,” Cranston told another audience of the county’s top transportation experts in Irvine. “That is my main focus in the Senate--to bring that about primarily for the things you need.”

Cranston’s day was billed as a education session for the senator, a chance for him to talk with local leaders and community groups about their most difficult problems and how the government might help. The senator made similar trips this week through Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

In Orange County, Cranston talked about offshore oil with city officials in Laguna Beach, about trauma care with doctors at UCI Medical Center, and got into a lively public session on drugs at a church hall in Anaheim packed with more than 400 people.

Cranston’s audiences received his suggestion about reducing the defense budget cordially. But in Anaheim, there were raw nerves about the government’s reaction to the drug problem and catcalls over Cran aston’s idea to generate money from defense.

One 36-year Anaheim resident told Cranston that he feared he would have to move because of the problem. Then he quoted from an exhibit at Disneyland in which a robot of President Abraham Lincoln “states that America is only going to be destroyed by itself. This drug epidemic is going to destroy it,” the man said.

In Laguna Beach, Cranston also pledged to local officials that he will join their effort to preserve the area’s beautiful coastline.

At the Laguna Beach Hotel, with his back to a panoramic view of the crashing surf, Mayor Robert F. Gentry intrigued Cranston with a suggestion that the ocean between Orange County and Catalina be made into a national park, protecting it from offshore oil drilling.

Cranston, who called Laguna Beach “one of the most beautiful places in California,” said later that he will investigate the idea. He also promised to explore the possibility of preventing the development of Laguna Canyon, the site of Orange County’s most emotional showdown between builders and environmentalists.

Cranston, who authored legislation leading to the preservation of several hundred acres in nearby Crystal Cove, said he wasn’t certain the federal government could do anything to prevent the development. But he said, “I think it would be nice if it could be saved.”