Sample ballot lesson is not yet learned

JOSEPH N. BELL

When those sample ballots arrive in the mail a month before an

election, I always open them up immediately and check my preferences

on the big contests, the ones I know I’m not going to change my mind

about. Then I look at the propositions and mark the handful I’m clear

on. Then I put the sample ballot away, and for the next month I pick

at it as I learn more about specific candidates or propositions and

review the choices of publications I respect.

That way I come up to election day with most of my choices in

place. But not all. The ones still blank are the slates for the water

districts and college boards and municipal judges, full of names

unfamiliar to me. And far too often I go to the polling place with

those choices still unmarked, and I stand in the polling booth and

read the scraps of information on the ballot. If the name resembles

someone I know and like, or the occupation of the candidate is a

field I admire, or I have some sort of out-of-body reaction, I make

an impulsive decision, rather like the manner in which I pick the

longshot in a trifecta at Santa Anita, when I haven’t had time to

study the Racing Form.

That’s what I used to do. But no more. From now on, I tell myself,

I will write “Rocco” on my sample ballot in large red letters when it

arrives. Then when I’m faced with making choices of which I’m totally

ignorant, “Rocco” will serve as a reminder to leave that portion of

the ballot blank. I will vote the candidates and issues I understand

and quit while I’m ahead. That’s what I have learned in Orange County

in the election of 2004, thanks to a man who may or may not exist

named Steve Rocco.

In case you missed Rocco in all the other election news, he

appeared on the ballot as a candidate for a seat on the board of the

Orange Unified School District. After filing, he was never heard from

again. No campaign fliers or candidate meetings or public appearances

or cardboard signs on front lawns. Nothing. And no one cared since

Rocco was running against a well-qualified candidate strongly

supported by the teachers’ union.

No one cared until the morning of Nov. 3, when it became apparent

that in this district that cares deeply about education, Rocco had

just been elected as a trustee. As I write this, he has still not

surfaced, and the voters in Orange Unified are asking themselves how

this could have happened. I could tell them, but it wouldn’t help

much.

I could also tell them that we had our own example of voters

abandoning good sense in the case of Armando Ruiz seeking to replace

himself on the board of Coast Community College District. Ruiz took

advantage of a tax aberration to greatly increase his pension by

retiring simultaneously from employment at Irvine Valley College and

service as a trustee. Then, with quite remarkable contempt for the

knowledge of voters in his district, he ran for -- and won -- the

seat he had just resigned. Most of us would probably have been

tempted by the beefed-up pension, but Ruiz had the chutzpah to seek

it all.

If there’s a moral here, I guess it would be that we get who we

vote for, so it is in our best interests to have some idea of who

they are. Rocco may turn out to be a lousy trustee -- if they can

ever find him -- but at least he has raised public awareness of this

truism a notch or two.

CHOOSE KEY-KEEPERS WISELY

A lot of locals have been using the Pilot’s Forum page to question

whether public officials were sacrificing civic pride by presenting

keys to the city to the cast of a schlock TV show allegedly taking

place in Newport Beach but not filmed here, which is one of the many

reasons for hiding the keys when their flacks suggest some mutual

marketing.

I’m not going to discuss the merits of the show here. You can see

it for yourself. Nor do I have a problem with Hollywood flacks. I

worked with them for years, found most of them highly professional,

and still have close ties there. What troubles me is that Newport

Beach is now my hometown, and I think we should pick our friends

carefully. Embracing “The OC” isn’t a matter of morality, just bad

taste.

Dennis Rodman is back in the neighborhood. Maybe he could pull in

a few tourists. So, will he get the next set of keys?

A.L. BUT NO L.A. IN ANGELS

Arte Moreno, who owns the Anaheim Angels, is an astute

businessman. He made very sure he had ample reserves in the goodwill

bank before he started to draw on them. He banked the acquisition of

several high-priced stars -- notably Vladimir Guerrero, just named

the American League’s Most Valuable Player -- who brought a pennant

to Anaheim. And he lowered the price of beer, among a passel of other

achievements. Now, Arte is drawing heavily on that reserve in an

effort to put distance between the Angels and the city of Anaheim.

He’s dropped the Anaheim name from the Angel uniforms as well as

the team’s logo, website, schedules and tickets. And he’s plastered

Los Angeles with Angel billboards in a clear effort to seduce Dodger

fans. Good try, Arte, but it won’t stretch easily. It’s rather like

the Green Bay NFL team changing its name to the Milwaukee Packers. Or

the Cincinnati baseball team becoming the Ohio Reds. You’re dealing

with fractured civic pride here, and that isn’t going to be

compromised without a fight. So Arte’s honeymoon will likely shift to

a courtroom, and he may have to raise the price of beer at his

ballpark to pay his legal fees.

I just hope he doesn’t plan to use the money my daughter and I

deposited with him in case the Angels made it to the World Series

again. Baseball has an unbeatable scam for postseason play. If you

want tickets, you have to buy the whole package, through the World

Series and even including a possible playoff game. We’re talking big

money here, and the teams involved in postseason play have the use of

this money whether they advance or not. We don’t want to wait until

Spring training for a rebate on all those tickets we had to buy for

games that were never played.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.