Feeling Harassed Over Money Best Spent Elsewhere

Y ou have to be careful these days. The women are wearing skirts up to here, and you don’t know why. Is it a fashion thing, or are they coming on to you? You can’t ask them for their number or grab their butt ‘cause you don’t know what will happen.

--Unnamed male City Hall security guard, quoted in a 1993 news story after sex harassment allegations were filed against Councilman Nate Holden.

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A word of advice to that security guard: What you can do, if we are to understand the sage words of Judge Raymond D. Mireles, is invite a subordinate to your home, remove your shirt and ask for a massage. (Not that as a security guard you would necessarily have a subordinate. But should you ever find yourself, oh, elected to the City Council, you may want to retrieve this nugget of useful information.)

As a taxpayer who resides in the City of Los Angeles, I suppose I should feel relieved that the tab for the Nate Holden Legal Follies has stopped at about a million bucks. So far.

I suppose I should be grateful that Holden prevailed in court against his former receptionist, Marlee Beyda, who accused him of making a number of unpleasant sexual advances, which I will refrain from detailing because the mental images could ruin your day. I should be grateful that our already depleted civic coffers will not be further drained to pay damages to Ms. Beyda.

But I can’t get too excited, because: A) the judge may have erred in ruling that Holden’s Marina del Rey apartment was not part of Beyda’s work environment and her lawyers could appeal; B) yet another lawsuit accusing Holden of sexual harassment looms, slated to begin in Orange County in January, and C) the second lawsuit, filed by Carla Cavalier, turns on events alleged to have taken place solely in the workplace.

So who knows what the final tab-- our final tab--will be?

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It would be nice, at the very least, to hear from Holden that his behavior--while perhaps not illegal --was ill-advised. It would be nice to hear that he is sorry our tax dollars--which could be put to such better use--are being spent in this fashion.

It would be nice if pigs could fly.

But why would a powerful city councilman who sees nothing inappropriate about asking his receptionist to his home for a post-midnight massage apologize for doing so?

And why expect anything other than what we have gotten from the councilman: chest-puffing, bravado and boxing ring metaphors. (“Now I’ve been hit with the ring post and survived.�)

Or vague accusations of political and racist conspiracies. (This week he said he felt like he’s had a “noose around my neck for three years,� and invoked Clarence Thomas’ infamous line about being the victim of a “high-tech lynching.�)

Or explanations about the crushes his accusers must have had on him. Or angry outbursts about the “holier-than-thou� attitudes of those who say his behavior is appalling.

At least Holden cannot be accused of inconsistency. He fights and fights hard, no matter who you are.

After attorney Melanie Lomax filed Cavalier’s sexual harassment lawsuit, Holden countersued both of them for defamation and libel. (His lawsuit is on hold until Cavalier’s is resolved.)

Gloria Barrios, a feminist activist, was once arrested by City Hall police at the direction of Holden after she appeared with a group of women in City Council chambers to demand that Holden’s colleagues launch an investigation of the sexual harassment allegations.

Barrios had been among a group of women who knocked on Holden’s office door after he ducked out of the chambers to avoid them. Chanting his name and knocking on his door, Holden claimed, constituted a disturbance of the peace, and when they returned to the City Council the following week, he had them detained.

Barrios, as it happens, is no stranger to the law. She is a state deputy attorney general, and as she predicted at the time, the charges were later dropped.

“He’s used his office at any price,� Barrios said, “including having us arrested. I think it works. I think a lot of people are afraid of him.�

I know I’m afraid of Nate Holden.

And, frankly, I think any sane taxpayer should be too.

* Robin Abcarian’s column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Readers may write to her at the Los Angeles Times, Life & Style, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, Calif. 90053. Send e-mail to [email protected].

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