SAN FRANCISCO: $5.1M Bequest to Help Poor, Elderly

      A San Francisco Board of Supervisors committee approved a plan Tuesday to use a $5.1 million bequest from the estate of Zygmunt Arendt "to establish a perpetual fund for aiding the poor and elderly." Pending approval from Judge Lawrence Kay, the gift will be realized this summer. Arendt was a retired railroad inspector, who "lived frugally in a sparsely furnished house, getting around in a wheelchair and subsisting on tuna, bananas and sardines." But he was also "an exceedingly canny investor in the stock market," and "near the end of his life, his portfolio was yielding dividends of $20,000 a month" ( AP/Contra Costa Times, 4/8).