Worries Cloud Golden State

In California, it seems, there’s no such thing as a little bit of trouble.

Not so long ago, in the early 1990s, disasters came wrapped in disasters like so many nesting dolls: Earthquakes, riots, droughts, wildfires, floods, an economy gone to the dogs -- it seemed to never end. Until it did. Nature was becalmed, the economy boomed. Life, for most people, was good.

Now some people wonder if trouble has come knocking again.

The sorrowful litany seems to grow by the day: State government is practically in default. The governor faces a recall. Southern California smog is back at levels not seen for years. Schools face budget cuts. College fees are climbing. A national literacy survey finds Los Angeles to be the intellectual peer of Toledo, Ohio. The state’s economy is queasy. And L.A. Laker Kobe Bryant is under arrest.

“Do you think there is anybody who isn’t massively worried?� said Linda Sutton, a middle school teacher in Los Angeles who came from Pennsylvania in the early 1970s and wonders if it isn’t time to leave.

“When,� she asked, “did everything go bad?�

The answer seems to depend largely on personal experience. A sampling of opinion from around the state Monday suggests that the people who are most unhappy are those most hurt by the state’s fiscal woes, which date to the meltdown of the dot-com economy in 2000. But many others remain gung-ho about life in the Golden State, a place built on cockeyed optimism and cycles of boom and bust.

You could hear the optimism in Jack Freeman’s voice as he answered the telephone at his Prudential California Realty office in Cerritos. “Jack Freeman, I can help you!� he declared -- no question mark implied or intended. But then, Freeman is in Southern California real estate, and times are sweet.

“The people I’m doing business with are not worried about the budget,� he said. “It’s not affecting the employed.... From the perspective of real estate, our business is up. Prices are up. The only challenge is finding enough houses to sell.�

Among those at the other end of the spectrum is Rachel Jagoda, executive director of the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust. With the museum partly reliant on public funds, she said she is despondent about the state budget crisis and the potential recall of Gov. Gray Davis.

“We’re bankrupt virtually; we can’t get any money from the state,� she said. “I’m afraid it’s going to get much worse before it gets better.�

When she looks into California’s political future, Jagoda sees Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger staring back. “I like ‘T-3’ as much as the next guy, and I think he’s smart, but I am not Republican, and I’m fearful he’s going to become the next governor of the state,� she said.

Budget troubles have translated into pain for Marcus Schexnayder, 25, a parking control officer for the city of San Francisco. Two months ago, word came down that his division would have to produce 500 more tickets per day to help the city balance its books. That has translated into more work and a steady dose of verbal abuse. Then, last month, the city slashed retirement benefits. Schexnayder must now cough up 7% of his own salary for benefits his employer once covered.

“There are no jobs for people, there’s a big hiring freeze, and when the mayor [Willie Brown] leaves I think it’s going to get worse,� he said. “This budget has affected everything.�

At a Ralphs Supermarket in South Los Angeles, Marcel Bernard was squeezing a quick shopping trip into her workday at the South-Central Los Angeles Regional Center. Like many Californians, she worries about cuts in public education.

“The schools here are just really bad now,� Bernard said. She said she had put her children in private school, despite the expense, because of the state of Los Angeles city schools.

“You think they would be able to do something about it without raising taxes, but they probably will raise them,� Bernard said. But then, she said, not much surprises her -- not the poor air quality, not Los Angeles’ literacy ranking or other miseries.

“After all,� Bernard said, “it’s Los Angeles.�

At Orange County’s South Coast Plaza, most shoppers acknowledged that Californians are dealing with more problems than usual. But nobody seemed terribly distraught or willing to leave the state in search of a better life.

“What concerns me most is, places that need money the most, like our schools and our teachers, can’t get it,� said Denise Wintrode, 46, of Laguna Beach. “I think that’s horrific. I hope the Kobe thing comes out to be nothing. That would be a shame if something comes of that.�

“Sometimes, I sit back and think, ‘Wow, how did it get so out of control?’ � she added. “And why are we recalling the governor? And what has he done that is so bad?�

Angela Rice, 31, of Seal Beach said: “The only things that really get me down are Gray Davis and air pollution. Luckily, I live at the beach.... I think when I’m 80, I’ll move back to Minnesota.�

In Ventura County, county Supervisor John Flynn said he has knocked on the doors of about 2,000 homes in his Oxnard district during the last six weeks in his reelection campaign, and has noticed a general malaise hanging over nearly everyone he meets.

“People feel unsteady, I think,� he said. “They’re very concerned about the instability and feel unstable themselves. They feel the Legislature is simply not capable of coming to terms with the budgets, and it makes them upset.

“Then again,� he added, “some people are so busy making a living, they don’t have time to worry about anything.�

Polls have shown that Californians are in a funk, at least when it comes to public leadership. A Los Angeles Times poll earlier this month found nearly two out of three people saying the state is on the wrong track. A poll in February by the Public Policy Institute of California found overwhelming pessimism about the state’s economy, with nearly three out of four people saying they expected bad times in the coming year.

Still, it is possible to find reason for hope. Silicon Valley seems finally to be rebounding after several years of unremitting gloom. California’s farmers, who tend a multibillion-dollar harvest, are predicting a good year. Even the Lakers seem to have found hope in the depths of crisis, with verbal agreements to sign two future Hall-of-Famers and dramatically increase their chances of another championship next year.

Tracie Cone, who publishes a weekly newspaper in Hollister, northeast of Monterey, grew up in California and says she’s seen the state dip into the doldrums plenty of times before, always to eventually forge its way out.

“I can’t think of a time in history when there hasn’t been something so strange going on that it hasn’t attracted the attention of the world,� Cone said. “That’s what California does. It goes through periods of malaise. All of a sudden you have massive earthquakes, the whole state is on fire, the schools are in trouble. Every social and economic problem rears its head here first. And California always seems to endure.�

That would seem to be the experience of Mike Forbes, a freelance writer who was standing outside a job center in San Francisco’s Mission District Monday afternoon. A UC Berkeley graduate with a degree in English, he has been searching for a job since January and said he had $43 in the bank.

Even substitute teaching is out: The San Francisco Unified School District is so overburdened with prospects that it no longer accepts applications.

If something doesn’t change by the end of the month, Forbes will head for his parents’ house in San Diego to “couch surf� until the recession clears. But he doesn’t think businesses will be expanding soon. He lays some of the blame on Gov. Davis.

Still, underneath his despair is a stubborn streak of California optimism.

“It’s a sunny day and I’ve got a girlfriend,� said Forbes, 29, “and I have a job interview tomorrow.�

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Times staff writers Nancy Wride, Sandy Banks, Katie Flynn, David Pierson, Amanda Covarrubias, Eric Bailey, Allison Hoffman, Erika Hayasaki, Lee Romney, Patricia Ward Biederman, Jean Guccione, Carla Rivera, David McKibben, Gregory W. Griggs, and Sandra Murillo contributed to this report.