People and Events

You will forgive Inglewood city officials if they’re a little distraught. The City Council has scheduled a public hearing for tonight on a proposal to add 20 police officers to the force at a cost of $1.4 million.

“When we set the meeting,� said a receptionist in the office of Mayor Edward Vincent, “we had no idea the Lakers were going to go seven games.�

The Lakers, of course, play in Inglewood and the deciding seventh is tonight at the Forum. The mayor has a bet on the outcome with the mayor of Pontiac, Mich., where the Pistons play.

So, you ask, why not postpone the hearing?

Too late. Notices have been sent out to all Inglewood property owners. Legally, they’re stuck with it.

Deputy City Manager Norman Cravens said he plans to take his miniature TV set to the meeting. There are tentative plans to offer members of the audience periodic score updates.

At least one city councilman is philosophical: “It’s probably for the best,� said Anthony Scardenzan. “It’s good luck for the Lakers. Every time I go to see them, they lose.�

It is unlikely that anyone else in the Antelope Valley would have had a more unusual vacation, but the weather refused to play ball, so Al Letcher won’t be landing at the North Pole in his helicopter today.

Letcher, who owns an engineering company in Lancaster, managed to get a couple of hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, spokesman Al Kennedy said Monday, but had to turn back and will try again next year.

Why?

“That’s a good question,� said Kennedy. “I asked him the same thing. He said a lot of guys take a week or two and go hunting or fishing. But he loves to get in his Hughes 500 jet-powered helicopter and fly where no one else has gone. It’s his vacation.�

Letcher, wearing a coat and tie, took off from Mojave June 10 and headed for the Northwest Territories of Canada, from whence he was to jump off to the pole, winds permitting.

Kennedy says Letcher is about 62 and spent years flying in Alaska, both as a commercial airline and bush pilot. “He’s very experienced and very cautious,� Kennedy insists. “He will never take a chance.�

When she graduated from Franklin High School in the Highland Park area two years ago, Porntip Nakhirunkanok won a $500 scholarship that helped her go on to Pasadena City College.

Except for winning the Miss Universe title a few weeks ago, nothing much else has happened to her.

The Thailand-born winner will show up tonight to present similar Times Fund grants to graduating Franklin seniors Carlos Del Cid and Gabriella Croee.

“Her calendar’s quite full,� said Jack Wright, the high school’s college coordinator. But she readily agreed to show up and do the honors during the scholarship and financial awards program at Occidental College.

Fortunately, she will not be required to hand out grants to all the Franklin seniors on the list. Out of a graduating class of about 530, said Wright, 239 seniors already have won 573 various awards with an aggregate total of $3,560,196 over the next four years. Others have applications pending.

The Hollywood Bowl, as many summertime concert lovers have learned to their distress, is only five miles from Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport and 15 miles from Los Angeles International Airport.

Or, as the Federal Aviation Administration notes, it is “near the intersection of Airways V186, V459 and V201.� This can make it a little difficult to hear the softer violin passages upon occasion.

As it has in past summers, the FAA is once again planning to advise pilots not to fly over or near the bowl during this season’s concerts, which will be held every night from July 3 through Sept. 17. White searchlights and white strobe lights will show them where it is.

The strobes were added last year, says FAA spokeswoman Elly Brekke, because they “are just a little more visual lights that pilots can pick up.�

Brekke noted that the action is only advisory and that the FAA has yet to take any pilot to task, but “of course if one did come down and buzz the bowl, we would have to do something about it.�