Bradley Praises Labor Unions for Building Skid Row Shelter

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley praised organized labor on Monday for providing temporary shelter to Skid Row’s homeless, then exchanged charges on rapid transit with his campaign rival, Councilman John Ferraro.

Bradley drove to Skid Row for a press conference celebrating the opening today of a shelter at 5th and San Julian streets.

The mayor’s driver parked near “Thieves Corner,” where unemployed men sat before fires in the chilly afternoon, and Bradley walked across the street to the one-story green shelter, built by union members with donated labor and material.

Seated next to him at the news conference were William Robertson, secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO; V. C. (Bud) Mathis, executive secretary of the Los Angeles County Building and Construction Trades Council, and Paul Miller of the Carpenters Union.

Bradley said the opening of the 19,000-square-foot shelter, which will provide beds for 138 people, will mean “a dream of Bill Robertson for housing has come true.” Robertson conceived the idea of the shelter and got Bradley to commit city funds and assistance.

Robertson praised Bradley for “his support of social programs.” In answer to a question, he said he would feel “much more comfortable going to Mayor Bradley than to Mayor Ferraro” for help on the issue of the homeless.

Bradley’s quick trip to praise labor’s efforts in Skid Row, along with Robertson’s dig at Ferraro, were strong signs that the labor-Bradley alliance is intact in the mayoral contest between two Democrats who have both been backed by the labor federation.

In this April 9 municipal primary contest, the federation’s committee on political education has already endorsed Bradley, a recommendation that was to be ratified at a meeting of the county federation Monday night, Robertson said.

Robertson said the labor group is satisfied with Bradley’s record. Neither Ferraro nor Bradley was interviewed by the committee, he said. “When have an incumbent we are satisfied with, we don’t interview other candidates,” he said.

The federation represents about 700,000 union members in Los Angeles County.

Monday’s events were part of a process of coalition building by Bradley in the early stages of his campaign. Saturday, he attacked apartheid at a meeting of the Black Women’s Forum. Tonight, the mayor is to renew ties with the Jewish community at a dinner at the Beverly Hilton for the Martyrs Memorial and Museum of the Holocaust.

Ferraro, meanwhile, attacked Bradley on the issue of the proposed Metro Rail subway project. At a press conference outside City Hall, he said the mayor should have attended a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington last Thursday to help put together a national lobbying effort for Metro Rail and for the homeless.

Bradley spoke several times in Los Angeles that day and went to Santa Ana for a speech to Southern California officials at a meeting of the American Society of Public Administrators.

“As mayor, I will not be making speeches in Orange County when the vital decisions regarding funding for the homeless and the future of rapid transit for Los Angeles are being decided in Washington,” Ferraro said.

Ferraro renewed his pledge to “immediately develop a realistic transit plan that can be funded to its completion.” He advocates a light rail system built along the freeways, a program Bradley said would result in the closing of two freeway lanes during the construction period.

Ferraro denied that there would be such closures and Bradley again compared the Ferraro plan to the ill-fated diamond lane experiment in 1976, in which a Santa Monica Freeway lane was closed to single-occupant auto traffic and reserved for car pools and mass transit.

Bradley also replied to Ferraro’s charge that he failed to fight for funds in Washington last week. He said Deputy Mayor Tom Houston attended the Washington session and joined with other deputy mayors in formulating a strategy for persuading Congress to vote for transit funds.