Good will is in short supply in the case of the wounded donkey.
Annie the blind donkey apparently thought there were better things to do on a hot day in Reseda than to be the star attraction of her master’s news conference.
Larry Pulley had brought Annie to Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joy Picus’ field office to allege that Picus was indirectly responsible for the animal’s being blinded by teen-agers with pellet guns.
The sad tale of the donkey and the attempt to pin the crime on Picus would come later. Pulley first had to get the reluctant, hay-chewing donkey from his van in the parking lot behind the council office to the front sidewalk, where reporters and about 25 sympathizers awaited the tardy news conference.
“Tell her to munch on the run, OK?” Reseda neighborhood activist Penny Newmark told Pulley.
Newmark had organized the news conference, saying it would feature “a surprise guest” she had refused to identify. After all, that would ruin the surprise. Why not let reporters think it could be some important celebrity or public official? They didn’t have to know it was a donkey until they got there.
But now that they were there, and the abused donkey didn’t want to move, Newmark had a problem. With Pulley’s 12-year-old daughter Michelle riding on Annie’s back, Pulley pushed the donkey from behind. Newmark and West Hills community activist Paul Hjortsvang pulled on the animal’s bridle.
This went on for more than five minutes.
Perhaps sensing that it was not the best public relations to have three people dragging the donkey to an event intended to lament the cruelty that had already been perpetrated upon the poor animal, Reseda Community Assn. President Peter Ireland asked Newmark: “Do we want to move the press conference to where the donkey is?”
But Newmark, who managed Ireland’s unsuccessful campaign against Picus earlier this year, was as stubborn as Annie.
“No, we’re moving the donkey to the press conference,” she said. “Don’t give in.”
(Newmark, of Reseda, said later that her past political activities had nothing to do with her championing the cause of Pulley, of West Hills. Ireland distanced himself from the event, saying he was there only as an observer.)
When the donkey finally arrived, the story poured out. A panting Pulley, sweat rolling off his forehead, described how he had taken photographs of two people shooting air rifles. What is certain is that someone did harm Annie by shooting her in the eye with a pellet gun on July 9. Pulley brought pictures of two people holding what appeared to be air rifles. Los Angeles authorities have charged two of his 18-year-old neighbors with felony cruelty to animals.
The link to Picus, insisted Pulley and Newmark, was that the councilwoman should be held accountable for zoning laws that permitted condominiums next to Pulley’s rural lot. Pulley keeps animals--ducks, chickens, Annie--that his condo neighbors think are too noisy.
Pulley says the neighbors have been attacking his animals to get back at him for the noise and for his complaints to city officials that too many condo units were built on the land. Picus, according to Pulley, has failed to stop the attacks.
Inside Picus’ office, the councilwoman was angry. Her press aide, Susan Pasternak, quietly summoned reporters inside so her boss could hold an impromptu news conference of her own.
“Larry has a very short memory,” Picus said in an irritated, staccato tone. “My staff has done more to resolve Larry Pulley’s problems than we have done for virtually anyone else in the district. We have gone beyond any reasonable level of response.”
One Picus aide spent hours with Pulley but eventually decided that the best way to resolve the neighborhood dispute was for Pulley to reduce the number of animals he keeps, Picus said. But since Pulley’s lot is zoned for animals, he doesn’t have to do that, she conceded.
Sometimes, Picus said, problems cannot be resolved “except by the good will of the people involved.”
But good will in this case may be in short supply. Pulley finds little of it in the people who shot Annie in the eye; Picus said she viewed the entire affair at her office as an attempt by political opponents to embarrass her.
At the West Valley police station down the block from Picus’ office, news of the donkey’s arrival was met with some surprised chuckles. Picus and politics did not figure in the police investigation of Annie’s shooting, which Detective Robert Shane summarized as “a neighborhood dispute.” The next day, another investigator derisively referred to the “major” attention given to the story by one local newspaper.
Pulley, however, was glad for the attention to what he sees as a real problem that he doesn’t think Picus has tried hard enough to solve.
He eventually did catch Picus that day as she left the building; she suggested he talk to her staff. So Pulley packed up his donkey and went home.
This time he brought the van around front.
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