People and Events

The Cal State Cat Lady has won her fight.

Cathy Billing, a thesis reviewer at Cal State Long Beach, led a successful drive to persuade university officials to drop their plans to make the campus off-limits to felines.

“We’re very happy,” said Billing, who led a letter-writing and petition effort. The kitty controversy was picked up by newspapers across the land as well as by the British Broadcasting Corp.

Under the new agreement, enrollment on campus is limited to 25 cats, which must be registered with the school, like their two-footed neighbors. The animals, of course, may stay as many semesters as they wish. “We can replace those who die or leave,” said Billing, who personally tends to the nutritional and medical needs of 15 of the animals.

The only setback, Billing said, was that cats will not be allowed to live indoors. Thus, Art Kitty, a celebrated 11-year resident of the Art Issue Room, has been given to a family in Lakewood out of fear that she couldn’t fend for herself in the wild.

Billing said university officials seemed stunned by the reaction to the original ban. She said one administrator told her, “I’ve never received such hate mail. Cat lovers are really vicious people.”

It lacked the drama of “Raise the Titanic!” except, perhaps, for one local dealership. Arcadia police and three tow-truck drivers pulled a stolen $15,000 Ford pickup truck from the Arcadia High swimming pool early Thursday.

Police had received an anonymous call telling them where to find the vehicle, which had been stolen from a local dealership, Capt. Rick Sandona said.

The joy-riders drove it through a fence and into 12-feet of water. It took crews more than two hours to raise it. “It’s a lot easier to put one in a pool than pull one out,” commented Sandona.

Linda Richardson, the daughter of Bellflower Mayor Kenneth J. Cleveland, received a call Thursday morning from someone who said, “We got your father, his car and thousands of dollars worth of stuff.” The woman then laughed and hung up, a worried Richardson said.

What the thieves actually got was not the mayor himself, but his 1987 Continental, a television set and a few other items in an overnight burglary at the Cleveland home.

After discovering the theft, the mayor thought it only logical to try to reach the passengers on the car’s cellular phone.

“I called it and they answered it--they’re so dumb,” Cleveland said. “It was a guy who answered. He said, ‘Hello,’ and I said, ‘How you doing?’

“Then he said, ‘OK,’ and hung up.”

It’s the true home of the Lakers, but Inglewood isn’t exactly basking in the glory of the NBA champions.

Whereas the team paraded through the streets of Los Angeles last June, it canceled a public celebration outside Inglewood’s Forum.

Not only that, but it took the mayor of Pontiac, Mich., five months to pay off one installment of his bet with Inglewood Mayor Edward Vincent after the Detroit Pistons lost to the Lakers in the playoffs. (Pontiac, like Inglewood, had that left-out feeling, even though it’s the true home to the so-called Motor City team.)

Pontiac’s Walter Moore had promised to provide enough bulbs to light up Inglewood City Hall. Five-hundred 60-watt light bulbs finally arrived this week.

Unfortunately, Inglewood’s nerve center is equipped with energy-saving fixtures that do not take 60-watt bulbs. However, the bulbs do fit the lamps in Vincent’s office, both of them.

Roddy McDowall figures to be the first celebrity to have three stars on Hollywood Boulevard--all in the same spot. The 60-year-old actor’s first bronze plaque was removed recently as part of a drive to refurbish the Walk of Fame.

However, the second plaque will also have to get the boot. As film historian Sam Frank pointed out, the name on the replacement star is spelled: “MacDowll.”

Los Angeles Milestones:

1880--Asphalt and concrete are first used on the streets and sidewalks of Los Angeles.

1988--Metro Rail construction paves the way for the temporary return of wooden streets and sidewalks on Hill Street downtown.