A letter mailed by a constituent to...

A letter mailed by a constituent to L.A. City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky on Sept. 2 arrived at City Hall the other day--a mere six weeks later--mainly because it made a side trip to Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

The note, mailed in L.A., landed in Belgrade on Sept. 8, according to the postmark.

“I guess,” the councilman speculated, “somebody read (Yaroslavsky) and thought, ‘Yugoslavia.’ ”

If only he had been so lucky with the notorious, anti-Bradley memos that leaked from his last mayoral campaign.

As far as many Valley pet owners are concerned, “Power Radio” station KPWR-FM should turn down the volume the next time it throws a fireworks party at Universal Studios.

Sky Blast ‘89, as it was called, featured about 15 minutes of sounds that residents compared to bomb blasts Sunday night.

“My night officer told me we had dogs running loose all over the Valley,” said Lt. James Phipps of the city Animal Regulation Department.

“Fireworks shows can really cause dangerous situations with regard to pets. They leap over fences and just start running. We had one call after another from people giving us the license number of a dog that was in their yard and scared to death. One dog was injured because he ran so long that he ran his (foot) pads off.”

Barbara Rosenstein of West L.A. heard it on KNBC (Channel 4): The newscaster said that a man accused of diverting electricity to his basement “pleaded guilty to the charge--no pun intended.” The broadcaster was Kent Shocknek, no pun intended.

A driver approaching the dead end of little Lyon Street near Union Station last week could have been excused for wondering if he had reached wit’s end as well.

There hung eight street signs grouped together, including two with “One Way” arrows pointing toward a nonexistent road, and four that said “Main,” though Main was blocks away.

The signs, it turns out, were being tested for their reflective abilities as well as for their durability.

So, we’ll overlook the fact that someone forgot to dot the “i’s” in two of the “Main” signs.

It’s true: “Berlin Wall” came down last week.

That was the name of a showing of photos of the barrier by Leland Rice that had run since Sept. 22 at the Santa Monica College Gallery.

“I guess the difference is our ‘Berlin Wall’ was scheduled to come down all along,” said spokesman Bruce Smith.

Frank Sinatra’s status as an international statesman has been at an all-time peak ever since Soviet spokesman Gennady Gerasimov declared that, just as in “the Frank Sinatra song, ‘I Did It My Way,’ ” Eastern European nations, including Yaroslavsky, were “doing it their way.”

But Val Rodriguez of Signal Hill points out there was a time when Sinatra’s standing ranked lower--at least among the 1944 senior class members of Hollenbeck Junior High in East L.A.

In a class poll that year, “school work” ranked first in the “pet peeve” category with 37 votes, followed by Sinatra with 32 (most cast by male students apparently jealous of the bobby-soxers’ love for Young Blue Eyes).

There was also one vote for the school vice president’s “paddle.”

Rodriguez adds: “The vote for the VP’s paddle was mine.”