On a waning weekday afternoon, Cherie Chako rolls home from her Santa Barbara commute. Lorence Burndorf returns from another day in Ventura. And Robin Lovelady finishes her work in the greenery and strolls the three blocks home to her husband and children.
"We don't ever want to leave," Lovelady says.
Margaret Scheidman sits in her front room and peers down the block to the freeway and the sea. The cars zoom by.
If you live here, she says, "you don't hear them. The only thing that you can hear is the whistle on the train."
LA CONCHITABY THE NUMBERS
* La Conchitans make up most of county Elections Precinct 6250, which at last count, in November, included 295 Republicans, 213 Democrats, 43 nonpartisans, 9 American Independents, 3 Greens, 2 Peace and Freedom Party members, 1 Libertarian and 1 "miscellaneous" voter.
* In the 1990 Census, federal officials counted La Conchita as part of Unaffiliated Tract 12.05, which also includes several dozen pricey beachfront homes along Rincon Point and Solimar Beach. In the tract, census officials counted 1,195 residents--1,007 white, 173 Latino, 10 Asian, 1 black and 4 listed as "other." Those residents included 265 children and 455 occupied dwellings. Of these, 309 of the dwellings were owner-occupied and 146 were rented.
* Of 242 homeowners in and near La Conchita who estimated the value of their residences for the census, 134 cited values of $500,000 or more. Another 91 offered estimates between $100,000 and $400,000. One said less than $15,000.
CIVICS, LA CONCHITA STYLE
* If tourists speed, says resident Jenny Oren, sometimes someone lays down wooden planks across the frontage road to keep them from driving too fast.
* If strangers linger, says resident Mike Scheck, neighbors watch closely and "look out for each other."
* If a community controversy arises, says resident Clarence Dean, he might convene a meeting of the La Conchita Community Assn. Dean, who serves as association president, held his last meeting 1 1/2 years ago on the subject of highway traffic.
* And if a toxic waste spill in Seacliff closes the Ventura Freeway to traffic, the neighborhood children take over the highway with their skateboards, bicycles, dogs and Frisbees.
