Attorney Keeps a Low Profile as Tables Turn for Rival Lawyer

Signs of the city.

* When KFMB radio was doing a series of news stories (“Law for Sale”) critical of San Diego lawyer Sam Spital (of television-ad fame), rival lawyer Patrick Frega wasn’t reluctant to provide anti-Spital quotes.

“He’s essentially buying credibility” through his TV ads, fumed Frega.

Frega liked the series so much he wrote a letter of praise to the reporter’s editor. And sent copies to other reporters in town, along with cassettes of the series.

Wrote Frega: “Please accept the sincerest thanks of advocates who believe and strive to practice a noble calling; you have helped us police our profession.”

Now, of course, Frega is on the receiving end of some in-house legal policing.

The state Commission on Judicial Performance is probing whether three San Diego County judges gave favorable treatment to Frega and his clients after receiving gifts from Frega. Buying credibility through chumminess and gifts, you might say.

Spital isn’t commenting on this turn of events, but his office manager, Sheila Brittain, after conferring with Spital, says:

“He doesn’t feel it’s appropriate to talk badly about another attorney--even Mr. Frega. He isn’t that caliber of person--like Mr. Frega.”

* It’s election year, so public employees are taking their lumps. Nobody ever lost a vote blasting payrollers.

But here’s one for the other side.

It starts with Sylvia Heitzman, 62, of La Jolla, going to see the opera “The Magic Flute” at the Civic Theatre.

She’s getting into her car after the show when her star-burst broach--a family heirloom--slips off and rolls into the sewer.

“I was just sick,” she said. “I tried to grab it with my foot. It was going too fast.”

A day later she contacts City Hall. A sewer crew is dispatched to pop open a manhole and shimmy down the sewer. The broach is found clinging to a ledge.

Heitzman gets her broach. The crew gets a dozen doughnuts and a letter of thanks.

No big deal, says Clarence Miller, a supervisor in General Services. Crews are often dispatched to retrieve keys and jewelry and what-have-you from sewers.

But She Doesn’t Do Windows

Say it like it is.

* In a story on the San Diego-based Women’s International Center, Ranch & Coast magazine lists actress Patricia Neal as honorary national charwoman .

* Press releases I released immediately:

“Two Tantra mistresses, Moonjay and Kutira Decosterd, are leaving their Hawaiian retreat and descending on San Diego to join David Ramsdale, a local Tantra master and author of ‘Sexual Energy Ecstasy. . . .’ ”

* Free press again.

After a protest from media executives, the San Diego Police Department has dropped a plan to start charging for press identification cards.

* Heard at City Hall: Investigators have ruled out human error as the cause of the sewage pipe break that led to the massive offshore sewage spill.

More likely causes are an errant ship anchor and/or a massive undersea land shift due to storms.

* If you’re interested in new forms of personal combat, mark down May 1.

That’s when a squad of Vladivostokian Russians introduces a new kind of martial art at the Convention Center: combining boxing, karate and wrestling.

It’s called draka , which is Russian for all-out fight.

Passing for a Political Touchdown

First and goal.

For starters, there was ex-Charger coach Don Coryell as a co-host for a fund-raiser for Republican congressional candidate Alan Uke in the 49th District.

Now, San Diego Union-Tribune sports reporter Clark Judge, who covers the Chargers, is listed as a “special guest” at a fund-raiser for Green Party congressional candidate Dick Roe in the 51st District.

Judge likes the former Del Mar mayor’s environmental and anti-establishment politics, but he’s not sure how much luck his endorsement will bring.

He notes that the Chargers have had only one winning season since he started covering the team in 1984. Before that, he covered the equally hapless Baltimore Colts.

“I’m not exactly a four-leaf clover,” Judge says.