Seats

Baseball fans who collect trading cards and other memorabilia will soon be able to add a less common item to their inventory: stadium seats. The city plans to sell as many as 50,000 seats from Anaheim Stadium over the next two years. The seats are being removed as part of the stadium's $100-million make-over into a 45,000-seat baseball park. Renovation of the stadium by Disney Sports Enterprises is expected to begin next month.

Regarding "New Polish on a Treasured Mission Jewel" [Weekend Escape, Sept. 12]: In July I boarded Amtrak with my two granddaughters at the Solano Beach station. After spending five minutes in seats, we and everyone else in the car were told to move. We could find no seats, so we stood for 1 1/2 hours. The stairs were full -- kids were sitting in baggage racks. In San Juan Capistrano, a conductor told us there was an empty car, four cars back. That is where we had been seated at the start of our trip.

Sold-out events on a subscription basis are the ultimate and rarely achieved goal of any organization involved in presenting the arts. The Orange County Philharmonic Society has accomplished just that with its 1986-87 series of 12 concerts--our 33rd season and the first at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. The elation we should feel is sobered, however, by the fact that we could not fill requests for nearly 1,500 tickets. We sincerely apologize for the length of time required to complete the seating process, which precluded earlier notification to all those we ultimately could not accommodate.

Question: Can an airline bump passengers from previously purchased, extra-legroom seats? Last summer we checked in online for a United Airlines Boston-to-San Francisco flight and learned that we had been bumped back to regular coach from our previously purchased Economy Plus seats. We thought paying for the extra legroom seats essentially guaranteed us those seats. Could the fliers in "our" seats have had some frequent-flier elite status giving them priority? Stephen Martin Portola Valley, Calif.

In special elections Tuesday for two state Senate seats, Republican Sharon Runner loped toward a decisive victory in the High Desert and Democrat Ted Lieu was handily outpacing seven other candidates in the South Bay, partial election returns showed. Lieu's closest competitor was Manhattan Beach attorney Robert Valentine, but he and the other candidates appeared to be falling short of keeping the former assemblyman from winning the majority needed to avoid a runoff. Leading by a more than 2-1 margin, Runner declared victory with less than one-fifth of the ballots counted and promised to work to cut spending and jobs-killing regulations.

Stargazers seeking an up-close glimpse of Hollywood's royalty can win seats on Oscar night along the red carpet. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will conduct an online lottery to fill 300 bleacher seats for the Feb. 22 Academy Awards at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. It begins at 9 a.m. Monday and will run through 9 p.m. Sept. 28. Applicants can register for up to four seats at www.oscars.org/bleachers.

Hong Kong's pro-democracy politicians lost three legislative seats but held on to their key veto power over major legislation as they push for greater political freedoms in the Chinese territory. Democratic parties claimed 23 of 60 seats, down from their current count of 26. Ordinary citizens vote for 30 of the seats, while the rest are chosen by special-interest groups that tend to side with the central government in Beijing. China announced last year that the territory would not be able to elect its own leader until 2017 at the earliest, or all of its legislators until 2020 or later.

Regarding "A Seating Glitch on Amtrak" [Letters, Sept. 26]: I would suggest the writer try again and perhaps take the Coast Starlight to Santa Barbara. All seats are reserved, so she would get a seat. The Surfliner also services the same area, but it is not a reserved train. Mark Panitz Mar Vista The Travel section welcomes letters. Send to them to Travel, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012; fax (213) 237-7355, e-mail travel@ latimes.com. Please include your name, address and phone number, which will be used for verification only.

With 21 seats on various council-appointed commissions and boards expiring at the end of March, the city of Calabasas is looking for qualified candidates to apply for the posts. Any interested city resident may submit an application before noon on March 20.

Russians vote today in their second nationwide election since the end of Soviet rule in 1991. They are electing a new Duma, or lower house of Parliament. Its 450 members will serve for four years. Half the seats will be filled from party slates by proportional representation. A party must get at least 5% of the nationwide vote to get any seats. Forty-three parties have presented slates totaling 5,675 candidates.