Walnut Avenue is closed, from Glassell Street to Batavia Avenue, so new medians and crossing-gate arms at the railroad crossing can be installed.

The street will be fully closed March 15 to 18 and March 20 to 22.

“Walnut Avenue, specifically, is going to have a new median on both sides of the crossing to deter drivers from driving around lowered gates,” said Sarah Swensson, an Orange County Transportation Authority spokeswoman.

Railroad crossings across Orange County are meant to improve rail safety; they are part of a $70-million project funded by Renewed Measure M, Orange County’s half-cent sales tax for transportation projects.

Eleven of Orange’s 16 crossings are under construction, with partial road closures as needed.

Each crossing takes six to eight weeks for construction, but it’s a phased construction to lessen road closures, Swensson said.

Additional safety measures being installed include:

– Hand railings

– Pedestrian gates

– Improved signs and additional warning devices such as flashers and bells

These enhancements will allow Orange to apply to the federal government to establish a quiet zone, so that trains do not have to sound their horn unless there is an emergency.

– Morgan Helme

In Orange, children are lining up to help their furry friends in exchange for a free pass to Disneyland.

OC Animal Care, an animal shelter in Orange, offered its first volunteer event last month in conjunction with Disney’s “Give a Day. Get a Disney Day” program.

Disney is offering volunteers one-day passes to Disneyland or its other U.S. parks if the volunteer work is done with an accepted group. This Saturday, 40 more volunteers will help the shelter.

Although volunteers at the shelter typically must be older than 18 for liability reasons, OC Animal Care is opening its doors to children and families at least one day per month through the Disney program.

The children work with their parents to make blankets and toys for the animals, fruit kabobs for the bunnies, and special signs for the kennels to make the animals more attractive to potential owners, said Katie Ingram, volunteer program coordinator at OC Animal Care.

“At our shelter, we use it as an opportunity to bring families and children in,” Ingram said. “We show them simple things they can do at home to really impact animals at (the) shelter and hopefully they tell their friends about the great things we have going on here.”

Volunteers not only are able to help with things that the staff members don’t have time to do, they also impact the animals without even working directly with them.

“A lot of animals got adopted that day [the first Disney day],” Ingram said.

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A law prohibiting registered sex offenders in Orange from answering their doors to trick-or-treating children on Halloween was adopted by a 5-0  City Council vote Tuesday night.

The law will go into effect in 30 days and will:

• Require sex offenders to post a sign on their residences stating that no candy or treats are available on Halloween.

• Make sex offenders leave off all exterior lights of their homes during the Halloween evening.

• Keep sex offenders from decorating their residences with Halloween decorations.

Councilman Jon Dumitru said the law would apply to 66 of the 81 registered sex offenders living in Orange, because those 66 have offenses against minors.

Councilman Jon Dumitru said the new law is a companion piece to one the Orange council passed in 2008. That law restricts how many registered sex offenders can live in a hotel and bans them from loitering near places where children gather.

“The people of Orange can know the streets are little safer when they take their children out trick-or-treating,” Dumitru said.

The Halloween law is the first of its kind in Orange County, Dumitru said, adding that he hopes other cities will follow suit.

The penalties for violating the law are up to a $1,000 fine and/or up to a year in jail, according to a city staff report.

City Attorney David DeBerry said there are other cities across the country, as well as the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, that have similar laws regarding Halloween and registered sex offenders. The Department of Corrections law affects parolees in the state.

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Orange resident Tracy Zimmerman auditioned for the game show Wheel of Fortune in July 2009 and was lucky enough to have her name chosen at random.

Zimmerman, 42, will appear on the show airing at 7:30 p.m. tonight on KABC-TV.  She took time to talk about her experience:

Q. Why did you decide to audition for Wheel of Fortune?

A. I’ve watched the show forever. One night my husband and I were watching it and they had an open casting call at Morongo Casino and we decided to go.

Q. What did you have to do to audition?

A. There were 7,000 people, so they had us fill out a card with our information on it. I got called up by luck of the draw. They had you do a mini-audition. If you passed it, you got called back for another audition.

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