Enter the Gadfly From Hell

Melvin Perlitsh has a sour face, a strident manner and a voice like a baritone band saw. In Burbank they call him the Gadfly From Hell.

When he comes at you frowning and shaking his head, you know there has been a social injustice somewhere to which Melvin has taken personal offense.

Brave men scatter when they see Perlitsh approaching and women shield the ears of their children from the invective he is about to fire in barrages.

Politicians who, because of public commitment, cannot always flee, find Melvin in their faces often.

He lies low for weeks, then, like a troll hiding under a bridge, leaps upon them when they are least expecting it.

Eyes blazing with indignation, he shouts that they are practicing politics in the toilet again and that he, Melvin Perlitsh, will not stand for it.

If the confrontation occurs on the street, they are able to drive away. If he berates them at a City Council meeting, they throw him out.

That happened recently in Burbank, where the 65-year-old retired mailman has turned dissent into an art form practiced by pit bulls.

Melvin Perlitsh, self-styled spokesman for the Little People, was unceremoniously bounced once more from a public meeting.

And all because he thinks politicians are the worst thieves and liars ever to assemble in one place, and is not afraid to tell them that.

His most recent ejection from a council meeting came about three weeks ago. It wasn’t the first time. In fact, it has happened so often that Melvin won’t even guess at the number.

He has also been arrested twice, the first time for telling the Burbank school board president to go to hell and a second time for distributing leaflets in a park after being told to stop.

None of the incidents have slowed him in the least. If anything, they have fired his resolve to remain the quintessential gadfly, right up there with hot dog vendor Mort Diamond in Canoga Park and Bible-quoting piano teacher Al Ramirez in Pomona.

I met with Melvin the other day on a street corner near the Burbank airport to discuss his latest travail.

“What did you do this time to get thrown out of the council meeting?” I asked. It was like asking a tiger shark why he had eaten an abalone diver.

“I swear I don’t know,” Melvin said, trying his best to appear confused and indignant. The shark, I am sure, would have replied in a similar manner.

“I was speaking in favor of off-street parking and attempting to offer examples of where it was not being monitored properly when Bowne said, ‘Stick to the subject.’ ”

That would be Robert Bowne, the mayor of Burbank.

“I replied,” Melvin continued in a manner intending to convey the equanimity he displayed at the meeting, “ ‘I am sticking to the subject,’ and tried to explain exactly how I was sticking to the subject.

“But before I could, he turned off my microphone and told the police chief to have me removed. The chief said, ‘Let’s go,’ so I went.”

He sighed and shook his head. “It was So long, Melvin . . . again.”

The off-street parking issue, Melvin admits, was no big deal. His real fights are for affordable housing, minority representation in city government and recreation centers for teen-agers.

Twice Melvin has fought successfully to save parks in Woodland Hills and Burbank, and he continues to speak on behalf of open space. If his manner is corrosive, his intentions are seraphic.

“Maybe you should stay quiet for awhile,” I suggested. “If you keep raising hell, they’ll just keep throwing you out.”

Last week he was even ordered to leave a supermarket. Melvin was in front of the store carrying a placard that said “Feed the needy, not the greedy.”

He was also rattling coins in a tin can to make his point, that point being opposition to a $165 raise the Burbank Council wants to give itself.

The matter will come to a head tonight when council members vote to increase their pay from $600 to $765 a month. Melvin, of course, is against it.

“They ought to get nothing,” he said, fuming, “because they’re not worth a damn. I’ll be there to say just that.”

I wanted to ask Mayor Bowne how he felt about Melvin’s efforts, but the mayor wouldn’t return my phone calls.

Former Mayor Mary Lou Howard, however, said people like Melvin are both desirable and necessary. She just wishes they’d be a little briefer.

I’m not sure that’s possible with the Gadfly From Hell. But if he is bounced at tonight’s meeting, that won’t stop him. He’ll just crawl back under a bridge somewhere and wait for next politician to pass.