C Bradley Olson

A powerful local planning agency cleared the way Wednesday for Anaheim to annex Gypsum Canyon for a housing development, and county officials signaled afterward that they may soon drop their own efforts to acquire the property. Supervisors and other officials said the board will almost certainly abandon a proposed Gypsum Canyon landfill when it takes the issue up in December.

On a joyous May evening in Mayor Fred Hunter's downtown law office, residents of the city's upscale Anaheim Hills area, developers, civic leaders and a majority of the City Council gathered for a toast. The party was a celebration of the stunning defeat of a tax proposal to finance construction of a county jail in Anaheim's back yard, and it effectively erased all doubt as to how the council is expected to vote Tuesday on a plan to cover Gypsum Canyon with 8,000 homes.

Plans for a massive new community of almost 8,000 homes in Gypsum Canyon sped ahead in the race Monday against a competing plan for a county jail. The Anaheim Planning Commission certified the environmental impact report and overall plan for the Irvine Co's. Mountain Park development. The approvals, decided during a daylong meeting at City Hall, move the plan to the City Council, which has been rushing to block the county's efforts to capture the area for a 6,720-bed jail and new landfill.

The woman who wrote the county's campaign finance-reform ordinance filed a complaint Monday with the district attorney's office, alleging that Board of Supervisors Chairman Harriett M. Wieder and the Irvine Co. violated the ordinance last month. Shirley Grindle, who in 1977 headed the drive for the TIN CUP (Time Is Now, Clean Up Politics) ordinance, is asking that Wieder's April 27 vote for a development agreement covering the Irvine Co.'s Laguna Laurel project in Laguna Canyon be voided.

Closing yet another door on the county's plans to build a jail in Gypsum Canyon, the City Council has opened its arms to a massive canyon development plan that calls for construction of nearly 8,000 homes. The council's approval of the environmental study of the Irvine Co.'s 3,179-acre Mountain Park came late Tuesday over the objections of environmentalists who continued the call for the land to be maintained as wildlife habitat.

As 1985 quickly fades into a sea of champagne bubbles and department store sales, there comes a time for reflection, a time to take stock of the lessons learned from the sports happenings in Orange County over the past year. The Rams taught us that qualifying for the NFL playoffs as an 11-5 division champion can bring a team more criticism than going 9-7 and making it as a wild card.