Col. Ralph Abra Vaya stood in the middle of 18th Avenue a block north of Sunrise Boulevard and ignored the beaded sweat that dropped from the tip of his 80-year-old nose to his scarred sternum, the mark of open-heart surgery. The old man announced he was going to die. “Tell…

Pete Brewer admits he’s a gadfly, an agent provocateur of Hollywood officialdom. For this resident it’s a salute of praise, but city officials who have been called to task by Brewer for wasting money use the word derisively. “Mr. Brewer’s ‘facts’ — and I put quotations around the word facts…