Lawsuit Threat Officially Kicks Off Congressional Campaign

There is an old expression that a party is not a party until something gets broken. In politics, it can be said that a campaign is not a campaign until someone threatens to sue.

The race for the congressional seat held by Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks) can now officially be declared a campaign.

But the threat of a lawsuit does not involve Sherman, the freshman incumbent who is seeking reelection to represent parts of the west San Fernando Valley and east Ventura County. Instead, it is Republican candidates Joe Gelman and Randy Hoffman who are locking horns.

It started a few months ago when Gelman began to make an issue of a device sold by Magellan Systems Inc., the firm that Hoffman co-founded and headed before resigning to run for Congress.

The firm makes hand-held devices that use satellite signals to allow users to determine their exact location anywhere in the world. The U.S. military relied on Magellan’s global navigation devices to help troops find their way through the sands of the Middle East during the Desert Storm war. But what got Gelman upset is that Magellan began in 1994 to produce a satellite navigation device that allows users to view data in English and Arabic. The device was marketed to Arabic-speaking countries.

Gelman contends the device can be used by Middle East enemies of the United States and Israel, such as Iraq.

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that such sales are a threat to the qualitative technological edge of America’s leading ally in the Middle East, Israel,” Gelman said in a press release he issued in January.

When Hoffman’s attorney’s got wind of Gelman’s accusations, they stepped in, threatening to sue Gelman for defaming Hoffman. “We demand that you immediately cease and desist from any further defamatory publications of your false and malicious statements regarding Mr. Hoffman’s alleged complicity with the government of Iraq,” James Sweeney, an attorney representing Hoffman, said in a letter to Gelman. “Should these statements continue to be made, we have been authorized by our client to immediately institute legal proceedings against you.”

No lawsuit yet, but it’s still early.

Mission Impossible

Mission College in Sylmar recently issued a news release about a speaker who will appear on campus later this month to talk about chemical addiction, recovery and sobriety.

The release said he is a Los Angeles city councilman who has “helped lower crime, add city-funded housing and promote recreational opportunities for youth.”

It goes out to tout his leadership on the council’s Community and Economic Development Committee and his membership on the Finance Administration and Inter-governmental Relations Committee of the National League of Cities.

But the notice never comes out to say what makes this speaker qualified to talk on addiction. Perhaps it’s too obvious to mention. The keynote speaker will be Councilman Mike Hernandez, who was arrested and pleaded no contest last year to possession of cocaine.

After his arrest, Hernandez admitted he had often used cocaine and was even intoxicated during several council meetings. As part of his probation, he must be tested at least twice weekly for drug use. So far, he has stayed clean.

Charter Passions

For the longest time, the biggest problem with the effort to overhaul Los Angeles’s antiquated governing charter was that the issue is so esoteric and bland that few can stay awake long enough to understand it.

That all changed last week when the chairman of the elected Charter Reform Commission, USC law professor Erwin Chemerinsky, suggested the city’s new charter include a “bill of rights” to ensure city employees good wages, protect citizens against police abuse and guarantee women’s abortion rights.

But the idea did not sit well with community leaders and some charter members, who described the proposal as everything from “inappropriate” to “absurd” to “crazy.”

So, when the elected panel came to Van Nuys on Monday to take public testimony, at least one commissioner worried that the bill of rights idea might prompt some violence. To ensure no one got too crazy, Dennis Zine, a charter commissioner and director of the union that represents the rank and file members of the Los Angeles Police Department, asked the LAPD to provide some security at the Van Nuys meeting.

Two officers in a patrol car were sent to wait in the parking lot for at least part of the meeting. Zine defended his action, saying there have been bombings and killings around the country over the volatile issue of abortion and he didn’t want to take any chances.

“Knowing the history of abortion and the violence that that issue causes, I wanted to err on the side of caution,” he said. Fortunately for everyone, the meeting offered plenty of stimulating discussion but no violence.

Shining Moment

So there was this big fight at the county Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday. Not a surprise.

And it was about the beleaguered Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Also not a surprise.

Except this discussion--of county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky’s proposed ballot initiative to halt further construction on any of the city’s subway lines--wasn’t on the agenda. That meant, for instance, when Yaroslavsky accused his opponents of preferring back-room deals to upfront decisions, he could be seen as violating California’s open meetings laws.

And when Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke shot back that Yaroslavsky’s measure would amount to throwing out the baby with the bathwater, she was doing the same thing. Ditto for Supervisor Mike Antonovich’s comments on alleged corruption at the MTA.

(All five supervisors sit on the MTA board, and have participated in its decisions on what to build and what to spend.)

Finally, when things were getting really heated, Yaroslavsky put a stop to the discussion, invoking--you guessed it--the open meetings law, named for Ralph M. Brown, former speaker of the Assembly.

“I think somebody needs to make a finding that this was not on the agenda,” Yaroslavsky said, urging his colleagues to calm down and move on to a new topic.

“This is about the biggest violation of the Brown Act.” So they all went back to the scintillating topic that they were legally bound to discuss: a subdivision map.