Twelve shopping malls in Greater L.A. are...

Twelve shopping malls in Greater L.A. are holding a kind of Yakity-Yak Olympics in a search to find the fastest talker in the Southland.

Semifinalists, who will be judged on speed and accuracy, must record a tongue-twisting talk at one of the branch offices of the sponsor, Pearle Vision Express eyeglass manufacturers.

The final mouth-off, to be emceed by John Moschitta, speed-talking star of TV commercials, will be held June 2 at the Plaza Pasadena.

L.A.’s full of fast talkers, but our nominee to win would be Donald Trump, the hopeful developer of the Ambassador Hotel site, who could hit the judges with this one:

“L.A.reallyreallyreally needs a150-storyhotel.”

Who’s what? Speaking of silver-tongued devils, retiring County Supervisor Pete Schabarum has received a biographical questionnaire from the authors of “Who’s Who Among Hispanic Americans.”

And why not? After all, his paternal grandmother was a Latina. Not that he let that heritage sway him.

Schabarum--and the other board members--long opposed plans to redraw the supervisorial boundaries in order to give Latinos more voting power. And when it came to naming who he’d like to replace him, Schabarum chose Superior Court Judge Greg O’Brien, rejecting his own longtime assistant chief deputy, Sarah Flores.

You need to be a fast talker, by the way, if you phone AFL-CIO official Jim Wood in his office in the late afternoon.

Every day, his line goes dead at 5 p.m. It happened the other day while a Times reporter was talking to him. Wood, who is also the Community Redevelopment Agency’s board commissioner, said later that he tries to watch the clock so he can warn the other party. And he is able to phone back (if he so desires).

Why the 5 p.m. cutoff?

Wood explained that his office has an “old-fashioned switchboard” and his operator, who has “a good union contract,” heads home at 5 p.m.

We don’t want to say that the makers of the horror movie “Lisa” are having trouble finding favorable blurbs from critics for their L.A. newspaper ads, but the two rave notices they’re currently running are from the “Phoenix Teen Gazette” and “Sammamish High School’s Totem Talk.” Two (small) thumbs up.

A directory in the L.A. County Courthouse lists, as the occupants of the Press Room, the Daily Planet’s two most famous reporters. (See photo.)

Shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, in the “Superman” TV series, the Daily Planet had headquarters just a few blocks east, in City Hall.

MiscelLAny:

The annual cost of a student parking pass at Beverly Hills High is $240.