Person to watch: LOU CORREA
In a political year likely to be dominated on the local level by issues (airports, transportation, no-growth debates), Lou Correa is one individual who is likely to raise his countywide profile.
The two-time Assemblyman from Santa Ana is expected to run for the seat that Chuck Smith is vacating on the county board of supervisors. At this early going, Correa looks like the favorite. And if things play out, he would become the board’s first Democrat since the ’80s and the first Hispanic since Gaddi Vasquez resigned in 1995. Correa isn’t known for overt political ambition,associates say a big reason he’s interested in being a supervisor is to be closer to his wife (Dr. Esther Reynoso-Correa, an OB-GYN with Kaiser Permanente) and four kids. Controversy awaits: Correa backs the proposed El Toro airport, and he has championed Santa Ana’s interests in the contentious battle over rights to the former Tustin Marine base.
“I’m here to represent my constituents in north and central Orange County and if that doesn’t make me popular in South County, that’s the way it goes,” he said.
Correa, chairman of the Assembly Committee on Business and Professions, is often more simpatico with business interests than many of his Democratic colleagues. That may owe to his background,an economics degree from California State University, Fullerton, a law degree and an MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles, and experience as an investment banker and real estate broker.
,Rick Reiff
AGENCY to watch: OCTA
The Orange County Transportation Authority could be in the tollroad business next year.
Earlier this month, OCTA began talks with California Private Transportation Co. to buy the 91 Express lanes. The authority also wants to spend $7.9 million expanding the toll road along side the Riverside (91) Freeway. The state plans to mull funding for the expansion in April.
Insiders say it would make sense for OCTA to buy the 91 toll road, which became profitable in recent months. Critics call it a taxpayer boondoggle.
But OCTA is worth watching for other projects, too. Widening of both the Garden Grove (22) and Santa Ana (I-5) freeways is set to get under way next year. Bus and Metrolink commuter rail services also are up for expansion. Construction on the Laguna Niguel/Mission Viejo Metrolink station that began in April will continue, while a new bus station will open in Santa Ana in 2002,OCTA’s fourth bus station to date.
Meanwhile, work continues on the $180 million Costa Mesa (55) Freeway project to improve on- and offramps, among other changes.
The agency also in 2002 will go ahead with preliminary engineering work for the proposed light rail route running from Irvine to Santa Ana. Like the tollroad buy, the rail line is controversial. Backers see it as a progressive congestion fix. Critics contend it’s a Monorail more apt for Fantasyland.
,Chris Cziborr
