Who Says Chivalry Is Dead? Gordon’s Women Defend His Honor

Barry Gordon’s wife, Gail, met his ex-wife, Sandra, for the first time Thursday on a street corner in Altadena.

It wasn’t just any corner. Gordon, a Democratic candidate in the 27th Congressional District, held a news conference on the curb outside opponent Doug Kahn’s former residence.

Gordon called the gathering to rebut an attack mailer sent to 50,000 voters by the Kahn campaign--and to sling some mud of his own.

But first, the mailer.

Using a quote from a sexual assault victim, the Kahn campaign flier purported to detail Gordon’s “court record” by linking him to a lawsuit filed against the Screen Actors Guild when Gordon was president.

The lawsuit, filed by Burbank resident Charmaine Blakely, arose out of the conviction of Burbank talent agent Wallace Kaye for sexually assaulting actresses under the guise of testing their theatrical skills. Blakely complained directly to Gordon and accused him in a Ms. magazine article of doing nothing while other women were attacked.

Another part of the mailer reprinted a restraining order obtained by ex-wife Sandra in 1982.

That’s what brought Sandra Gordon to Altadena, where she was joined by an actress who is on the Guild board and once was its vice president.

Both women stood by their man.

Sandra blamed the restraining order on an overzealous divorce lawyer. She pronounced Gordon a “perfect gentleman. . . . He never touched me except in affection.”

As for her signature on a court declaration, Sandra said she routinely signed anything her attorney put in front of her.

Actress Christina Belford said Gordon immediately turned over Blakely’s sexual harassment complaint to Guild staff and was instrumental in getting the union to take sexual harassment seriously.

Gordon noted that Blakely’s attorney was women’s rights advocate, now Assemblywoman Sheila J. Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), who has endorsed Gordon. “If she thought I did anything dilatory, I never would have gotten it,” he said.

Street Theater, Act 2

Now back to Doug Kahn’s old house in Altadena.

Gordon held the press event there to delve into his opponent’s legal dirty laundry. It seems Kahn and his wife filed a lawsuit against a developmentally disabled adult who lived in a group home next door.

“To me, this is so symptomatic of what is wrong with our society today,” Gordon said. “Every annoyance, every minor inconvenience, has to be resolved in a courtroom.”

The problem, Kahn said in the lawsuit and in an interview, was that someone was hurling concrete rocks the size of his fist at his house. One of them shattered the nursery window, spraying glass on the crib, two weeks before the birth of their second daughter last year.

Efforts to resolve the matter, including reporting it to the police, failed. Thus, Kahn went to court seeking redress against the owners and operators of the group home. He has since moved to Pasadena, partly, he said, to avoid flying concrete.

“I have no objections to anyone developmentally disabled--or a group home--next door to me,” Kahn said. He said he had to mention the rock thrower by name to try to get a restraining order.

As is often the case in Southern California, the lawsuit is now about real estate values. Kahn said the house is empty. In selling it, he’ll have to tell buyers to beware of falling concrete--news that will certainly diminish the house’s value.

Seeing Red

Attendees at a community forum Monday for the 39th Assembly District race can be excused for experiencing a flashback to the 1993 mayoral campaign.

As she stood in front of the room wearing a bright red dress, candidate Valerie Salkin presented a striking visual contrast to her four male opponents, stationed around her in their standard blue and gray suits.

It was a replay of one of the sharpest images of the ’93 election season: mayoral candidate Linda Griego on television, resplendent in a red dress, talking up her candidacy while wending her way through a thicket of gray-suited cardboard cutouts of her male rivals.

Salkin, who has trumpeted her support from women’s groups, calls the similarity a coincidence.

“I wear what’s clean,” she said, although she acknowledged that her choice of attire might also have contained a hint of political calculation.

“I personally like red, and a lot of my clothes are red,” Salkin said. “It is a fighting color.”

Whether the wardrobe strategy is effective is another question. Griego finished fifth among the eight major mayoral candidates, well behind winner Richard Riordan and his runoff opponent, Michael Woo.

The Longest Yard

Although Zev Yaroslavsky resigned his Los Angeles City Council post more than a year ago to become a county supervisor, his influence lives on in City Hall like a restless ghost.

A 1994 proposal by Yaroslavsky to crack down on people who operate perennial yard sales has finally been approved with some modifications by a council committee and is expected to receive full council consideration in a few weeks.

Yaroslavsky, who as a council member represented parts of Sherman Oaks, Studio City and Van Nuys, proposed the law in response to complaints from residents who said the unending sales made neighborhoods take on a Third World appearance.

He proposed that residents only be allowed to sell used, personal items--as opposed to selling new merchandise such as stuffed animals and beanbags. Yaroslavsky also suggested limiting each resident to holding yard sales two weekends per year and only between 8 a.m. and sundown.

But because Yaroslavsky was not around to push his legislation, it got lost in the city bureaucracy for nearly two years. “It might have gotten misfiled and we just discovered it,” said city planner Cora Smith.

When the proposal reemerged recently, Councilman Hal Bernson, who has had his own problems with yard sales in his northwest San Fernando Valley district, picked up the baton and ran with it.

Bernson, the head of the council’s planning committee, approved the measure but decided that the proposal needed tougher restrictions. He proposed that the limit of two yard sales per year be limited to a total of only three days, ensuring that people don’t host two weekend-long sales.

He also limited the yard sales to the hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The proposal is now being reviewed by the city attorney’s office to make sure it passes legal muster.