Some Candidates Attract Publicity of the Unwanted Kind

Valley candidates pay good money to call attention to themselves--but not the kind being dished out recently by an irate hair dresser and a Pasadena judge.

For Phyllis Robinson, it’s a matter of parking more than partisanship. Robinson is a hairdresser at the Inta-Hair Salon on the 19700 block of Ventura Boulevard in Woodland Hills, next door to the campaign office of Republican Randy Hoffman, the candidate trying to unseat Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks).

The problem? Hoffman’s campaign workers hog all the good parking spaces, she said.

“It’s absolutely rude and insensitive,” said Robinson. “I wouldn’t vote for him for anything.”

Many of her clients, including Republican women coming to get their hair done, are forced to walk half a block because there are no spaces near the salon, Robinson said. Only one person has been sensitive about the problem: Hoffman’s mother, who works for her son’s campaign. She parks away from the storefront shops, Robinson said.

“I don’t think it’s a problem,” said Hoffman’s campaign manager, Todd Slosek, who said he is a friend of the owner of the salon. “There are a whole lot of spaces out there.”

Anyway, it’s first come, first served, Slosek said.

Hoffman’s brouhaha pales in comparison to the problems facing Shawn Waddell, the Green Party candidate for the 44th Assembly District.

This summer, a Pasadena judge issued an arrest warrant for Waddell stemming from an incident earlier this year, when sheriff’s deputies say they caught the 23-year-old high on amphetamines.

Green Party congressional candidate Maria Armoudian has found a better way to get noticed.

Faced with a daunting task of trying to unseat congressional stalwart Rep. Howard Berman (D-Mission Hills), Armoudian thinks she’s found just the political weapon: a talking billboard.

Armoudian’s billboard will be unveiled Monday on the corner of Parthenia Street and Sepulveda Boulevard in North Hills, and include a micro radio station blurting out political messages that can be picked up within a mile of the sign.

Listeners so inclined can turn their dial to 1500 AM to hear Armoundian’s taped message about what’s wrong in Washington, and how she would fix it.

“I’m going to talk a little about the history of corruption, why poverty rates have doubled, why bankruptcies have doubled, and how to bring the money back home,” Armoudian said.

An Appreciation

The death of former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley overshadowed all other business this week at City Hall. Bradley’s death at age 80 prompted tributes from nearly every member of the City Council.

More unexpected was the praise Bradley got from tireless City Hall critic Leonard Shapiro of Canoga Park. Shapiro praised Bradley for the simplest of political acts: When he once left a message for the mayor, Shapiro said, Bradley called him back.

“Leonard, this is Tom,” Shapiro quoted the mayor as saying.

Shapiro sometimes has difficulty getting city politicians to listen to him--even when he’s looking them in the face at council meetings--so Bradley’s action clearly struck a nerve.

“I couldn’t believe that anyone would bother to return a call,” Shapiro said. “He will be missed.”

Shapiro is not the only activist to say they had been surprised by personal phone calls from Bradley.

“I was unhappy with a commissioner once,” said Don Schultz, president of the Van Nuys Homeowners Assn. “I put in a call to the mayor’s office, and just for the heck of it, I asked that the mayor give me a call. . . .

“I got a call back from Mayor Bradley that same day. We still didn’t agree, but I couldn’t get over the fact that he picked up the phone and called me back. . . . He’s the best mayor we have ever had.”

Bradley’s name does not elicit universal reverence in the San Fernando Valley, however.

As activists were asked to reflect on his legacy this week, most critical were Valley neighborhood advocates and some secession supporters.

Gerald A. Silver, president of the Homeowners of Encino, said Bradley rankled leaders of a burgeoning homeowner movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s because of his support for developers that led to frequent conflicts with homeowners over height and density limitations.

Silver also believes Bradley neglected the Valley and was seen as tending to downtown business interests at the Valley’s expense. Silver said the seeds of Valley secession sprang from Bradley’s tenure.

But other activists, including those currently leading Valley VOTE, which is leading a petition drive to study Valley secession, said the connection between Bradley and secession is not a strong one.

“He was a totally fair person. . . . It was more the council” that neglected the Valley, said Bert Boeckmann, a Valley car dealership owner who Bradley appointed to the Police Commission. Boeckmann has been a financial backer of Valley VOTE.

Boeckmann, who was appointed and reappointed by Bradley, despite their considerable political differences, praised the former mayor highly. Even after Boeckmann publicly supported Bradley’s opponent in one of his reelection races, Boeckmann said, the two men went back to working together as if nothing had happened.

“He never held a grudge,” said Boeckmann. “There may have been a feeling that his focus wasn’t as strong here [in the Valley], but I don’t know anyone who really disliked Bradley.”

*

Times staff writer Beth Shuster contributed to this story.