TONY DODERO -- Editor’s Notebook

The names Robert Scheer or Steve Teitelbaum are not likely household

names in Newport Beach or Costa Mesa, but they probably should be.

You might have recently read about the Public Utility Commission’s

discussions to possibly split up the 949 area code or even worse install

an 11-digit overlay on the code.

I don’t know about you, but I’m just getting used to dialing the 949 area

code instead of 714, so the idea of a new area code only promises to

muddle my mind more than ever.

But thankfully, because of Scheer and Teitelbaum, the area code split and

overlay looks as dead as rotary telephones.

Scheer, a commentator and newspaper columnist, began the fight against

Pac Bell and GTE a year ago March after Teitelbaum, a Santa Monica

plastic surgeon, tipped him off to the phone company’s plans to install

an 11-digit overlay in the 310 area code.

“We were losing the whole idea of seven-digit dialing,” said Scheer,

whose numerous columns regarding the fight appeared in the Daily Pilot’s

sister paper, the Our Times in Santa Monica.

Those columns have been submitted for Pulitzer Prize consideration.

Phone companies insist new area codes and overlays, a process in which

callers would have to dial 1 and the area code and the phone number each

time, are needed because cell phones, pagers and fax machines are soaking

up the surplus of numbers.

Without splits or overlays, those numbers will run out soon, they say.

But in his reporting on the subject, Scheer made a curious discovery. The

phone companies were hoarding numbers to the tune of 3 million in the 310

area code alone.

Statewide, there are only 40 million numbers being used compared to 180

million available, Scheer said, thus dismissing the notion that numbers

are running out.

Scheer went on an all-out campaign blitz against Ma Bell, enlisting the

help of thousands of Santa Monica readers who bombarded elected officials

with e-mails and letters decrying the area code changes.

Additionally, Scheer pointed out that overlay instead of an area code

split was being promoted by phone companies to pit businesses against

local residents because the cost to change numbers for businesses is much

more exorbitant than for mom and pop.

“It’s an unnecessary choice because you don’t need either,” Scheer said.

Now that he mentions it, I really don’t want to have to get new business

cards again.

Anyway, Scheer’s reporting made him the person “least likely to be

invited to ATT’s company picnic” as the overlay plans were halted in the

310 area code and the landmark Consumer Area Code Protection Act of 1999

passed, prompting Gov. Gray Davis to issue an order that the state can

reclaim the unused numbers from the phone companies, thus making an

overlay or an area code split highly unlikely.

Still, the word needs to get out locally that overlays and area code

changes should NOT be an option here or anywhere.

For more information on the issue check out Teitelbaum’s Web site

atwww.stopoverlay.com .

* TONY DODERO is the editor of the Daily Pilot. He can be reached at

(949) 574-4258 or via e-mail at tony.dodero@latimes.com .