From Groves to Growth--County’s Continuing Saga

When the old Olive Heights orange packinghouse falls prey to the bulldozers in the first weeks of this new year, few will consider it news.

Perhaps a handful of reporters will show up for the razing, waxing nostalgic about how a county once internationally renowned for its orange groves now boasts only two packing plants and fewer than 1,000 acres of its trademark Valencias.

But in the Orange County of 1997, rapid-fire change has become so much the norm that its orange-grove past seems part of a different century. Even the long-vacant Olive Heights packinghouse with its peeling “Orange Sunkist Orange” logo reportedly has become a haven for gang members and the homeless, with neighbors calling for its demolition. In its place will spring up 36 new homes.

Indeed, many of the impending news stories of 1997 underscore how this county is finishing the century as a sprawling metropolis, grappling with the promise and problems of urbanization:

* Disneyland will break ground on the $1.4-billion Disney’s California Adventure, highlighting the beach, the wilds and Hollywood and further strengthening the county’s position as a tourism capital.

* The county’s first Latina congressional representative is due to be sworn in Tuesday even as the man she defeated continues to question the validity of the election results.

* More legal tussles loom as county residents debate whether they really want or need a new international airport.

* Banking on residents bored with VCRs and hungry for first-run films, screen-filled cineplexes will pop up faster than coffeehouses this year, from Huntington Beach to Orange to Mission Viejo. Ironically, some of these gleaming new movie palaces will rise on the sites of old drive-in theaters, which are now as rare as orange packinghouses.

The telephone gurus summed up this evolution last week with news that Orange County has grown so bloated with people and technological toys that it must be sliced into two parts.

Starting this fall, under current plans, only half the county would still be part of the familiar 714 area code. The rest of us are to be saddled with 949, wearily explaining to long-distance friends that we haven’t moved to Alaska or Guam, but have merely been squeezed out by cell phones and fax machines.

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With development booming in South County and new toll roads crisscrossing once-rural hills, hard environmental choices will face residents in the months ahead.

The preservation of the Bolsa Chica wetlands near Huntington Beach could be assured if state and federal agencies succeed in crafting a public purchase of the bird-rich marshes from developer Koll Real Estate Group by a Jan. 31 deadline.

But some critics vow to keep fighting the 2,400 homes planned for the adjoining mesa, and a lawsuit by project critics is scheduled to go to court this spring.

An equally vociferous battle looms over the future of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, as those opposed to building a commercial airport there vow to block the project in the courts.

Trying to avoid such emotional clashes, planners, landowners and scientists are hard at work at a little-noticed but far-reaching project that could determine whether massive areas of South County will be developed and what will remain open space. A draft plan is to be unveiled late this year.

Orange County commuters can expect wider highways and more carpools in the year ahead.

February could bring the finish of the vast $166-million El Toro Y/Santa Ana freeway improvement, which adds five new bridges, a new interchange at Bake Parkway and 13 miles of carpool lanes.

The Costa Mesa Freeway widening project is to be completed this summer, improving 1.3 miles from 17th Street to the Garden Grove Freeway transition.

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One of the thornier social questions likely to be resolved in 1997 is the fate of Proposition 215--the controversial medicinal marijuana initiative that won national fame in the “Doonesbury” comic strip.

A Cannabis Buyers Club of Orange County is up and running, providing marijuana to patients who can provide a doctor’s note recommending it.

But Sheriff Brad Gates and federal law enforcement officials have vowed to crack down on any physician making such a recommendation.

The county’s changing political makeup is sure to return to the national spotlight with the swearing in next week of Democrat Loretta Sanchez, the first Latina to be elected from the 46th Congressional District. Sanchez became a political star overnight when she defeated veteran Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) in November.

Sanchez said she soon will announce a series of initiatives to address the needs of the county. Jobs and education are likely topics.

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After suffering through 18 months of fiscal chaos, Orange County government begins 1997 bankruptcy-free but with formidable economic challenges ahead. It still must pay off an $800-million debt over the next 30 years, limiting its financial flexibility and posing problems if the economy takes an unexpected nose dive.

In 1997, the county intends to eliminate 200 jobs and use the more than $10 million in savings to improve parks, flood control and other services.

And this year, county lawyers are expected to position their clients closer to a trial or settlement of a $2-billion suit against Merrill Lynch and other Wall Street brokerages and professional firms blamed for the county’s financial collapse.

Court-watchers will be busy this year, with three high-profile accused killers facing trial:

* John J. Famalaro has pleaded not guilty of killing a young Newport Beach woman and stashing her handcuffed body in a freezer for years. His trial starts in early February.

* Leonard Owen Mundy could stand trial this year in the Fountain Valley shooting death of flight attendant Jane Carver, in what is widely seen as a contract hit gone awry.

* Gunner J. Lindberg is to be tried this spring on murder charges stemming from the tennis-court stabbing death of a former UCLA Vietnamese American student leader in what is believed to be a racially motivated attack.

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Cities across the county are poised to spend millions of dollars on projects from beach paths to convention centers.

Chief among them is Anaheim, as it launches a five-year, $4.2-billion growth spurt, with construction beginning on 10 major projects.

They include the $150-million Convention Center expansion, the second phase in an 18-month renovation of Anaheim Stadium and the March groundbreaking of the $1.4-billion Disneyland Resort project, which will bring a second theme park to the city.

“That is the Big Kahuna for us,” Mayor Tom Daly said of the Disneyland expansion.

In Huntington Beach, city leaders hope to resuscitate city revenues and stave off looming budget cuts and tax increases.

Beach-area redevelopment will continue with the Pier Plaza project, the Third Block West project and ongoing talks with developers for a conference center and additional hotel on the coast. The Huntington Center’s new owners are promising to renovate the county’s first enclosed shopping mall, tearing down the vacant Broadway and replacing it with a 20-screen movie complex.

For South County joggers and bikers, 1997 could bring the start of a San Clemente area recreational beach trail talked about for decades, now that the city has received a $1-million federal grant to help build it.

The $3-million project may be built in phases, the first linking North Beach, home of the city’s new MetroLink and Amtrak station, to the T Street Bridge just south of the San Clemente Pier. Ultimately, the trail would run all the way to Cotton’s Point at the southern tip of the city, a total of about four miles.

But amid the hubbub of new stadiums, new theaters, new politicians, some pieces of old Orange County will persevere.

Even as the decrepit Olive Heights packinghouse is prepared for demolition, efforts are moving ahead to protect an even older monument to county history.

As the new year begins, Mission San Juan Capistrano’s Great Stone Church--completed in 1806--is preparing to shed some of its long-standing and unsightly scaffolding to celebrate 1997 with a new east wall.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Anna Cekola, Nancy Cleeland, Lily Dizon, Shelby Grad, David Haldane, Len Hall, Greg Hernandez, Davan Maharaj, Tina Nguyen and Lee Romney and correspondents Kim Brower, Mimi Ko Cruz, Bonnie Hayes, Jeff Kass and Russ Loar.