County Seat

As a boy, Esteban Avila had only a skinny old horse and two pairs of pants, and he lived in a swampy neighborhood called The Toad. He felt stranded across a river from the rest of the world and wondered about life on the other side. He saw merchants pay bands to serenade them in the village plaza and dreamed of doing the same. He had a girlfriend but no hope of marrying her because her father was the village butcher and expected a good life for his daughter. Then Avila found an elixir and took it with him when, at 19, he went to the United States.

CLEVELAND -- The neighborhood doesn't look promising for scaring up votes: One house is charred and barely standing, a victim of arson; others have boards over their windows and orange Xs spray-painted on their doors. But the men, mostly African American, many from a shelter down the road, pass dutifully down the street, leaving fliers that encourage people to vote early and include a phone number to call for a ride to the polls.  “We're targeting lower voter turnout areas,” explained Deltrim Kimbro, 43, an ex-convict who is leading one of the canvassing groups in the closing days of the campaign.

In a state with nearly 38 million residents, it's inconceivable that there's a county with a peewee population. But Alpine County, with just 1,102 residents, is by far California's smallest. But what this county, in the Sierra Nevada about half an hour south of Lake Tahoe, lacks in numbers, it more than makes up for in recreational opportunities. The bed Although Markleeville (population 210) is the county seat, the best bet for cozy lodging is about 15 miles north at Sorensen's Resort (14255 Highway 88, Hope Valley; [800]

NEW PHILADELPHIA, Ohio - Kicking off a two-day, eight-stop bus tour through some of Ohio's swingiest counties, Paul D. Ryan and his family toured a factory in this small town to call for stronger support of small business and to rally supporters just 10 days before the election. “When you walk around a place like this, what you see is hard work. What you see is the ingenuity of the American worker,” Ryan said to the crowd of about 1,000 at Gradall Industries, a factory that makes excavating equipment.  “What I see is a future, if we get the right polices in place.” Gradall, which employs about 300, laid off 30 workers earlier this month, according to the New Philadelphia Times-Reporter.

The majority of the nation's sparsely populated rural counties lost even more residents in the last decade, though some of the counties ? particularly those in the Mountain West ? saw population gains that may be the result of retirees striking out for areas that are both scenic and affordable, according to a Times analysis of figures released by the Census Bureau on Tuesday. The data offer the first detailed portrait of heartland America in a decade, covering the roughly 1,400 counties of fewer than 20,000 people.

When the Legislature voted in 1889 to create Orange County, the bill did not state which city would be the county seat. That decision was left up to voters of the new county. Santa Ana and Orange were the two contenders for becoming county seat. To entice voters, the city of Orange offered to donate the Rochester Hotel in the city as the county courthouse. Santa Ana supporters denounced the offer as being "the great Orange hotel fraud."

The city added its voice to the chorus opposing a large jail in the canyons east of Anaheim Hills, with the city administrator saying Tuesday that Santa Ana is the ideal location because it is the county seat. Last week, the Placentia City Council voted unanimously to ask the Board of Supervisors to reconsider its July 15 decision to build a 6,000-inmate jail at Gypsum-Coal canyons and to put the facility instead in Santa Ana. City Administrator Roger L.

When the Starr County sheriff was led away in handcuffs for accepting bribes from a bail bondsman back in 1998, the county pinned his star on his chief deputy, Reymundo "Rey" Guerra. It wasn't long before Guerra was restoring the shine to the badge. Unlike his predecessor, Guerra was affable and approachable, a beefy man with a gray-flecked mustache who rarely carried a gun. He and his wife were regulars at the peach-brick Catholic church in tiny Rio Grande City.

Many California cities are named after saints. Santa Ana is the mother of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and the person for whom our county seat is named. It is only coincidental that a Mexican general, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, shares the same last name. That is no reason to rename our county seat, as a letter writer Nov. 19 implied. DONNA L. KRIESEL Cypress In the third paragraph of my Nov. 19 letter, I made a statement on my false understanding that the city of Santa Ana was named after Gen. Santa Anna.

In a state with nearly 38 million residents, it's inconceivable that there's a county with a peewee population. But Alpine County, with just 1,102 residents, is by far California's smallest. But what this county, in the Sierra Nevada about half an hour south of Lake Tahoe, lacks in numbers, it more than makes up for in recreational opportunities. The bed Although Markleeville (population 210) is the county seat, the best bet for cozy lodging is about 15 miles north at Sorensen's Resort (14255 Highway 88, Hope Valley; [800]

Even before last week's stinging reprimand from her House colleagues, Democrat Laura Richardson's reelection bid was in trouble. She had been burning through campaign strategists and congressional staffers for months. Debts were mounting. She had finished far behind rival Janice Hahn (D-San Pedro) in the June primary, under new election rules that produced several November contests between members of the same party. Hahn had also won the endorsement of California's Democratic Party, which typically furnishes money, mail ads and volunteers for its chosen candidate.

The majority of the nation's sparsely populated rural counties lost even more residents in the last decade, though some of the counties ? particularly those in the Mountain West ? saw population gains that may be the result of retirees striking out for areas that are both scenic and affordable, according to a Times analysis of figures released by the Census Bureau on Tuesday. The data offer the first detailed portrait of heartland America in a decade, covering the roughly 1,400 counties of fewer than 20,000 people.

Joe Mozingo's fine article, "An old diary throws him a curve," (May 17) rightly focuses on his family story, but it brushes up against one of the biggest untold stories in American race relations. "There's no coloreds," Mozingo's relative says, discussing Greensburg, Indiana. "They don't let them come back after sunset." Indeed, there aren't any. In 1906, whites drove them out. They proceeded to post signs at the edge of Decatur County, of which Greensburg is the county seat, saying, "Nigger, don't let the sun set on your back in Decatur County," complete with a picture of the sun going down.

Chinese authorities raced against time, distance, altitude and wind in a remote corner of the Tibetan plateau as they tried to rescue victims of a magnitude 7.1 earthquake that killed at least 617 people and injured 9,110 others. As dawn broke Thursday over Yushu county in western China, members of the military worked with residents and crimson-clad Buddhist monks using shovels, pickaxes and wooden planks to dig away at the wreckage.

As a boy, Esteban Avila had only a skinny old horse and two pairs of pants, and he lived in a swampy neighborhood called The Toad. He felt stranded across a river from the rest of the world and wondered about life on the other side. He saw merchants pay bands to serenade them in the village plaza and dreamed of doing the same. He had a girlfriend but no hope of marrying her because her father was the village butcher and expected a good life for his daughter. Then Avila found an elixir and took it with him when, at 19, he went to the United States.

Hildegard Smith doesn't remember the 30-odd years she spent raising her family in this rural county seat. Friends say the 50-year-old mother of five knows that the people gathered at her bedside are her children, but only because they have told her so. She believes Richard Smith when he tells her he is her husband, but cannot conjure up memories of their years together or the plans they made to retire soon to Florida.

I don't recall hearing the (Tustin) Marine Corps facility mentioned as a possible site for a new county jail. The only way a jail can be built anywhere is if it is built before people live in the area. The southwest corner near Red Hill Avenue and Dyer Road would be ideal for a jail because there is nothing but manufacturing, industrial and commercial uses in the area, and the site is close to the county seat. My impression was the base was going to be declared surplus and that government agencies would have priority to buy land at a fair price.

To call the upcoming special runoff election to replace a disgraced former assemblyman from Orange County "low key" would be an understatement. Gone are the cutting exchanges between the front-running Republicans that marked last fall's special primary in the strongly Republican 72nd Assembly District. The campaign brochures that once blanketed such communities as Fullerton, Anaheim and Brea have slowed to a trickle. And by the time the polls open Jan. 12, registrar officials predict, about three-quarters of those who will decide the election may already have cast their ballots by mail, as they did in the primary.

When the Starr County sheriff was led away in handcuffs for accepting bribes from a bail bondsman back in 1998, the county pinned his star on his chief deputy, Reymundo "Rey" Guerra. It wasn't long before Guerra was restoring the shine to the badge. Unlike his predecessor, Guerra was affable and approachable, a beefy man with a gray-flecked mustache who rarely carried a gun. He and his wife were regulars at the peach-brick Catholic church in tiny Rio Grande City.