L.A. Proclaims Just About Every Day a Special Occasion

By STEVE HARVEY

Feb. 29, 1988 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

Had a lot on your mind lately? Maybe you’ve been trying to keep track of Apparel Industry Awareness Week, Safe Boating Week, Organ Donor Awareness Week, Self-Esteem Day, Ceramic Tile Week and Correct Posture Month, not to mention L.B.J.-in-L.A. Day.

Those were among the more than 750 special occasions decreed over the last 12 months by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and Mayor Tom Bradley, a blizzard of whereases and therefores that keep their respective teams of scribblers up to their necks in Olde English and Roman italic.

“It’s amazing how they do it--bent over their desks like that all day,” marveled county spokeswoman Pam Everett of the supervisors’ eight full- and part-time kudos craftsmen.

A multicolored bar graph on the office wall of City Hall calligrapher Sebouh Terzian vividly illustrates his workload. Proclamations as well as other types of resolutions have shot up 140% for his seven-member staff in the last seven years, explaining why their workday sometimes ends at 2 a.m.

“Friday used to be the busy day,” said Terzian, as he allowed the ink to dry on Professional Social Workers Month. “Now every day is busy.”

Kept in Holding Pattern

The numerous requests that the city and county receive from groups and individuals are often stacked-up in a holding pattern--Supervisor Deane Dana did not get around to proclaiming February as Children’s Dental Health Month, American Heart Month and Black History Month until Feb. 16.

When a reporter phoned Dana’s office for information about proclamations in general, a secretary asked wearily: “Do you want one made?”

What once was a unique honor “has just gradually gotten out of hand, sort of like an inflationary spiral,” said Dan Wolf, a spokesman for Supervisor Kenneth Hahn.

Of course, the smaller cities are not immune from the giving spirit. Azusa Mayor Eugene Moses’ practice of doling out proclamations, plaques and medallions at the rate of one a day has prompted protests from the City Council.

Some of the proclamations from Bradley and the supervisors seem to cancel each other out: National Clown Week and No Bozos Day, Self-Esteem Day and Garlic Week, National Quality Month and Cable Television Month.

How effective the designations prove to be is often difficult to gauge--whether, for instance, people actually walked more erectly during Correct Posture Month, an event sponsored by a chiropractors’ group.

Rats Invade Mall

A few weeks after a Beverly Center Day proclamation rhapsodized about how the shopping complex had “enhanced the neighborhood (with) a very high standard of operation,” the mall drew widespread negative publicity because of an invasion of rats.

Also beset by internal problems, David Puttnam resigned as chairman of Columbia Pictures a few months after David Puttnam Day. Star guard Reggie Theus and the Sacramento Kings were outscored 36 to 4 in the first quarter by the Lakers on Reggie Theus Day.

And, oh yes: The Oct. 1 earthquake struck during Los Angeles Beautiful Month.

Charitable agencies that are singled out generally welcome the attention with an every-little-bit-helps attitude.

“Special weeks and months are a way of raising the public’s consciousness in areas such as breast cancer, which we know can be reduced with early detection,” said Yvonne Voisin of the local chapter of the American Cancer Society. She said designations, such as Cancer Awareness Week (last October), are used in the society’s fund-raising mail campaign.

However, a spokesman for another major charity said he does not bother to ask Bradley’s office for proclamations anymore because “they don’t mean too much and they cost money to frame. Besides they (the city) lost the last one (request) I gave them. I hand-delivered it, too.”

Tie-In to Business

Trade groups often contact Bradley’s office when they are holding a convention in town and the city honors them with a “week” on the grounds that they are bringing in business.

Fur and Leather Apparel Week (last April, in case you’ve forgotten) “gave us a lot of credibility,” said Richard Harrow, publisher of the magazines The Business of Fur and Leather Today.

“It was recognition that the fur and leather industries have gone mainstream,” Harrow added, explaining, “You don’t see the ugly bondage stuff anymore.”

Show biz proclamations from the mayor are also common, intended to encourage filming in the city.

L.B.J.-in L.A. Day coincided with the airing of the movie “L.B.J.: The Early Years.” Yes, that Lyndon Baines Johnson. The scroll noted that the movie was shot in “Los Angeles and surrounding communities that were made to look like Texas and Washington, D.C., locations, including an amazing transformation of the mayor’s office in City Hall.”

(By custom, only the mayor issues city proclamations, though City Council members often co-sign those that pertain to their districts.)

Blatantly political requests are turned down, the county’s Everett said, such as “when a group wants a Refugees Day of some kind to push their cause.”

Sometimes Controversial

Only occasionally do the pronouncements generate controversy.

A Hahn designation of Ground Zero Day (for the discussion of nuclear weapons issues) was amended at the request of Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who feared that it was slanted toward disarmament.

And Bradley’s declaration of a Water Bed Weekend a few years ago prompted the American Innerspring Manufacturers to rush an angry spokesman to Los Angeles, where he held press conferences to assert that “a water bed is one of the worst things . . . for a person with a bad back” and “a hassle” to maintain.

With so many proclamation proposals sailing through local government, it was inevitable that the process would become somewhat impersonal.

The beneficiaries (or their press agents) usually compose the wording themselves. A National Tourism Week proclamation sent to Bradley’s office suggests that where asterisks appear “you may wish to substitute your town, city, community, village, area, state, etc., whichever is most appropriate.”

The signature process is casual, also.

Etchie Mura, an assistant graphic arts coordinator in the county, said: “I used to put stickers on them to show them (the supervisors) where to sign and they’d still get it wrong sometimes. I’ve found it’s even better to lightly write in their signatures in pencil to show them the right place.”

Selection Explained

She added, with a laugh: “We choose the paper (for proclamations) for erasability, as well as writeability.”

There are other ways to guard against errant signatures, a councilman’s aide noted in Terzian’s office the other day. The aide, pleading with a secretary to repair a proclamation that his boss had autographed on the wrong line, said ruefully: “I knew I should have had his forger sign it.”

But if the designations are somewhat taken for granted these days, it was not always so.

In 1854, the governor of California set aside one day in November for a celebration. Unfortunately, his proclamation failed to reach the City of Los Angeles in time, and, so, there was no Thanksgiving Day observance here.

PROCLAMATIONS: A SAMPLER Here is a list of city proclamations issued in one week. Dates refer to when proclamations were announced. Actual “day” may have been later.

OCT. 5, 1987

Huntz Hall Day

CPR Awareness Week

Ride Share Week

World Lions Service Day

National Employ the Handicapped Week

Mental Illness Awareness Week

OCT. 6

Recycling Week

Apartment/Multi-Housing Industry Day

White Cane Safety Day

OCT. 7