People and Events

Peacocks are no slummers. Three years after a pack of them pitted friend against friend in ritzy Palos Verdes Estates with nightlong screeches, lousy hygiene habits and a taste for garden flowers, a bunch of the strutting birds are causing a similar rift in upscale La Canada Flintridge.

A 1984 brush fire prompted the local coyotes to move out of the neighborhood of $500,000 homes, which allowed peacocks to multiply. As in PVE, there are folks for ‘em and folks against ‘em. Some point out that at least peafowl keep down the rattlesnake population. Others probably prefer the snakes, which are quieter.

PVE has managed to regain a relatively peaceful existence through a management plan that keeps the peacocks thinned out by trapping and relocation.

The LCF City Council decided Monday night to buy a bunch of traps and lend them to residents. The Wildlife Waystation, which cares for wild animals, promises to take any trapped peafowl off their hands.

Elevators in the Criminal Courts Building at the Los Angeles Civic Center should be taking people where they want to go within a couple of months, County Supervisor Pete Schabarum says. Work now under way is expected to reduce waiting time as much as 40%.

Initially, Schabarum complained that riders were confused by signs on express elevators reading, “Local from 9 to 19th floor, express from 1st to 9th floor.” A simple “This elevator does not stop on floors 2 through 8” would suffice, contended the supervisor. He noted that for years people climbed on express elevators without realizing these did not stop until the ninth floor.

After he went public with that problem, it was called to his attention that one express elevator stopped wherever it felt like it--even at floors it was supposed to bypass--and simply refused to pause at the 11th floor. Another car was out of service for days.

Schabarum has now been “pleased to announce” that the county has hired a company to fix everything by Oct. 3. In the meantime, he said, all operating cars will stop at all floors. After the job is done, the management will decide whether to reinstate express elevators.

Hollywood memorabilia dealer Malcolm Willits had only two Oscars for sale in his telephone auction Tuesday after 20th Century Fox obtained a preliminary injunction preventing him from selling the one the studio got in 1954 for introducing CinemaScope.

Even as the bidding reached about $3,200 each for the others (a 1961 statuette honoring the best cartoon and a 1938 special effects Oscar for “Spawn of the North”) a paralegal showed up at Willits’ Hollywood shop to take custody of the one 20th claims.

Superior Court Judge Miriam Vogel on Monday issued the order barring its sale pending an Aug. 24 hearing. Willits had offered the statuette on behalf of Esther Roberts, who said the late producer Darryl Zanuck gave it to her while she was his secretary 34 years ago.

Fox officials claimed that it was a “unique and irretrievable asset” and that Zanuck had no right to give it away.

Willits noted the studio “never even missed it all these years.” He called them “Indian givers.”

Pacific Bell launched Tuesday what it thinks may be the biggest--or at least one of the biggest--mass deliveries in the world: the distribution of more than 3.7 million telephone books throughout Los Angeles County.

“That,” observed spokeswoman Kathleen Barco, “is an awful lot of books.”

The company plans to employ about 1,000 temporary workers during the next four weeks to carry the various community directories, yellow pages, white pages and business-to-business directories from 10 warehouses to 925,000 homes and offices.

They are not the same old yellow pages, PacBell says. They contain, for example, listings of activities at various county beaches and a rundown on places one can go in 2 1/2 hours or less.

To get away from the telephone for a while.

The city of Carson is facing a small problem with one of its own secretaries. Acting City Administrator William R. McKown has informed the mayor and the City Council that among claims for damages filed against the city is one by a De Edra Smith, who “alleges that on 27 June 1988 she damaged her stockings on a steel chair in the employee lounge.”

The claimant, McKown reported, “further alleges the city did not sand down and paint parts of the lounge chairs which caused her stockings to be snagged and torn.”

He added, “Property damage of $4.79 is claimed.”