Good for You, Charlie K.

Good for you, Charlie Kimelman. You held to principle like a pit bull to a mailman’s behind and if everything goes according to those sweet promises made by L.A. County, you’ll have your $169.42 back by the end of next week. Well, most of it. Don’t order the Dom Perignon yet.

I offer praise and cautious hope to Charlie K. because he may be emerging from a two-year nightmare of bureaucratic inefficiency that would strain the patience of a nun.

If God himself had been trapped in the kind of confusion that took two years out of Charlie’s life, the Earth would have opened under the county building long ago and our tax collectors would be doing business from hell.

You don’t know Charlie Kimelman, unless you have hired him to deliver your baby or to otherwise heal those areas of a woman’s body in which Charlie specializes. He’s an obstetrician-gynecologist and trust me when I say he is a sober and reasonable man, a loving father, an adoring husband and a law-abiding citizen.

Then why, I hear you ask, does his face burn crimson with rage when he discusses property taxes? Walk with me into the twilight zone of government ineptitude and hear the strange and unsettling story of a man lost in a memory system.

Charlie, who is 43, has practiced medicine in Tarzana for 13 years and, like most successful physicians, he is not a poor man. You will not find Charlie Kimelman ordering the spaghetti special at Denny’s or purchasing off-the-rack suits at Penneys Outlet.

Therefore, as a man of means, Charlie decided to begin planning for the future and a few years ago invested in a condominium. It was a decision made after considerable thought and careful financial evaluation. Charlie does not spend money foolishly. It takes a lot of babies to buy a condo.

That’s when his troubles began. In January, 1987, Charlie received a tax bill on the property for $123.67, covering a period of time that preceded his ownership.

With the kind of faith in government that a child places in its mommy, Charlie wrote to the county assessor’s office pointing out the error. He was assured it would be taken care of. Charlie smiled and went back to delivering babies. Is this a great country or what?

Then last year he tried to sell the condo. “I couldn’t believe it,” he said the other day. “There was a $169.42 lien against the property. It included the original $123.67 I was incorrectly billed for plus interest and penalties. I said ‘What’s going on here?’ ”

Charlie paid the lien in order to sell the condo and then telephoned someone named Margaret O’Neill in the assessor’s office. She admitted that it was an error and said Charlie would receive a refund soon.

Charlie waited patiently, but when nothing happened, he called again. Charles Amador, also in the assessor’s office, similarly agreed with Charlie that a refund was due and promised the check in a few weeks.

Time passed. Charlie telephoned Sandra Curtis in the auditor’s office, from whence the refund was to come. A check, she said, had been mailed to him. Unfortunately it had been sent to the condo Charlie no longer owned and had disappeared. Charlie would have to sign an affidavit that he had not cashed the check. But when the affidavit arrived, it was for $36.75, not the $169.42 he had coming. Charlie’s hands began to tremble.

He telephoned Sandra Curtis, who referred him back to Charles Amador, who referred him back to Margaret O’Neill. At this point, Charlie K. was beside himself. If he ran his practice the way the county ran its tax department, his babies would never get out of the womb.

Angry and frustrated, Charlie filed suit in Small Claims Court to recover his money from the county, vaguely confident that in the end justice would prevail over bureaucratic inadequacy. It was a belief that faded like a mirage in the desert. The suit was thrown out because he had not filed a claim against the Board of Supervisors first.

Lesser men might have abandoned the quest for $169.42, but not Charlie Kimelman. He wrote the required letter to the board and just three days ago received a telephone call from Donna Doss, who is division manager of the Tax Collector’s Office. She would make it right, she said. Hope blossoms anew, Charlie Kimelman.

Donna promises that Charlie K. will have his money within a week. Well, most of it. The $123.67 will be sent, but the rest of it . . . that’s a different department. She swears, however, she will follow it through until Charlie has received every cent he has coming.

“The poor man,” she said, “has suffered enough.”

Ah, yes.