Hypocritical Criticism

I was amazed to read the letter to the editor (Feb. 17) by Diana Plotkin (President of the Beverly-Wilshire Homes Assn.), criticizing Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky for supporting certain development projects in our neighborhood.

How hypocritical of Plotkin to criticize Yaroslavsky when she, herself, supported most of those same projects.

After criticizing the Ma Maison hotel, for example, Plotkin withdrew her own opposition to the hotel and its liquor permit once the developer agreed to create a slush fund of $250,000 for her and four of her friends to continue their so-called “efforts” in behalf of the community.

I attended one of her meetings and asked that she account for what she had done with the $250,000 she extracted from Ma Maison. She refused to directly answer my question, suggesting that this was no one’s business but her own.

Plotkin has most recently supported yet another retail center at La Cienega and Burton Way, in which the developer agreed to provide her and her group free office space. This sleazy arrangement was criticized by other homeowner leaders in the neighborhood.

Diana Plotkin is frequently quoted in your paper, but in my opinion she has no right to speak for my neighborhood. She runs her group in a secretive, dictatorial way, denying her own neighbors the right to participate in important decisions affecting their neighborhood. She apparently lives only for her personal vendetta against Councilman Yaroslavsky. Her tactics have turned the neighborhood against her, and for good reason.

MICHAEL B. KAISERMAN

Los Angeles