People and Events

Their writs, subpoenas and summonses may travel long distances. But lawyers themselves are the most sedentary business people in Los Angeles, a study by a foot-pad company says.

In contrast to police officers, who walk 6.8 miles a day, lawyers trudge just .88 miles on the job, perhaps laying to rest forever the perception that the legal profession harbors some ambulance-chasers.

The company, Dr. Scholl’s, put pedometers on 100 workers in 20 different job classifications and found that the average worker in Los Angeles walks about 3 miles a day.

Mail carriers rank second to police carriers at 4.4 miles, followed by nurses at 3.9.

Ranking almost as inactive as lawyers are newspaper reporters at 2 miles per day. (Information for this item was transmitted to the reporter’s desk via computer.)

Robert Rentzer no longer wants to repossess Mayor Tom Bradley’s car.

Rentzer, an Encino attorney, asked county marshals to seize His Honor’s 1987 Oldsmobile earlier this month in lieu of an $18,000 judgment that the city had owed a client for five months.

That attempt failed, but afterward, Rentzer said, the city attorney’s office phoned to say it will pay up. The check arrived Friday.

“It seems like after we got some publicity, they suddenly expedited the matter,” Rentzer observed.

No sooner had the jokes died down from a Los Angeles design competition that produced the “Clouds of Steel” freeway monument than a Los Angeles City Council committee approved plans for another one.

This time the quest is to develop an electric car.

“We’ve got to do something to help improve the quality of air,” said Glenn Barr, a spokesman for City Councilman Marvin Braude, after the vote by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

The plan calls for the winning company to produce 5,000 electric vans and cars capable of traveling 65 miles on one charge and hitting a top speed of 55 m.p.h. That’s far too slow for a Los Angeles freeway, of course, but Barr said the schedule calls for subsequent lines that would be able to hit 70 m.p.h.

The city could provide encouragement by purchasing some of the vehicles, asking other public and private entities to purchase some, and enacting preferential legislation in such areas as parking and delivery hours, he added.

In addition to developing a car, the company would have to design garage facilities, which instead of offering Mr. Goodwrenches, would be stocked with Mr. Finesockets.