Bradley Makes Appeal for Support of Valley Voters

Mayor Tom Bradley, seeking his fourth term in office, Tuesday night made his most direct appeal for the support of San Fernando Valley voters.

In an hour-long speech followed by a question-and-answer period before homeowners gathered in the auditorium of a Sherman Oaks elementary school, the mayor promised “100% commitment” to his job--but stopped short of promising that he would not run again for governor.

But reaction was mixed.

The meeting was sponsored by three influential homeowner groups representing a virtual cross section of Valley interests--the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn., concerned largely with controlling hillside development, and the Studio City Residents Assn. and North Hollywood Homeowners Assn., which are more interested in such issues as jet noise, taxes, crime and the cost of the proposed Metro Rail subway system.

Bradley--who has received Valley voters’ support in his mayor campaigns only once (in 1981)--stuck close to home issues in his address and during subsequent questioning.

He reiterated his support for the June ballot tax proposal to add 1,000 sworn personnel to the police force, and sought to allay fears that South-Central Los Angeles was receiving more police protection at the Valley’s expense.

“Anyone who suggests,” he said, “that the Valley Division has been robbed (of police officers) simply is not telling the truth.”

(Bradley’s principal opponent, Councilman John Ferraro, has pinpointed the Valley as a potential major source of support and has repeatedly charged that Bradley is shortchanging it on police protection.)

Bradley told his audience that Ferraro’s plan to increase the police force by 1,300 officers--without a tax increase--”just will not work; there is no such thing as a free lunch.”

He also pledged to continue his efforts in behalf of the Metro Rail subway plan “so long as that project is alive.”

But when asked to support a moratorium on high rise development along Ventura Boulevard, Bradley declined to commit himself other than to say that he would have his staff study the problem.

That set badly with Jerry Silver, president of Homeowners of Encino, who had raised the subject. He called the mayor’s reponse “very evasive and unknowledgeable,” and added that he had written the mayor several times on the subject and was still unsatisfied with Bradley’s responses.

Jerry Hays, president of the Studio City Chamber of Commerce, also expressed doubts.

“I’ve never been a real fan of the mayor’s actually,” he said. “The question is, is he bidding to become governor? Judging by the moves he’s made and the people he’s appointed, he’s running for governor.

“We need somebody who will focus . . . on the city. I think (Ferraro’s) ambition is to be mayor of Los Angeles.”

Richard Close, president of the sponsoring Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn., said he hasn’t made up his mind who he will vote for.

But while he agreed with much of what Bradley told the audience, Close said, “I’ve heard it for 12 years.”

Fred Cramer, a member of Close’s organization, was more positive.

“When I compare (Bradley) to all the guys we’ve had before and all the gobbledygook he has to be one of the hardest working, most honest men we’ve ever had,” he said.

The mayor began campaigning early on Tuesday.

He rose before dawn to renew old ties with organized labor, taking a tour of the new wholesale produce mart and pointing to it as an example of his Administration’s “partnership” with labor and private industry.

Bradley returned to the downtown industrial area where he had worked as a “swamper” when he was a teen-ager, doing what he called “grunt work--loading and unloading trucks.” That was in 1937, when the mart was not unionized. Before the Teamsters came in, Bradley said, “everybody was scrambling just to survive, wages were low and working conditions were poor.”

The mayor met with dozens of members of Local 630, the union that now represents some 7,000 drivers, warehouse workers and produce handlers. At 5:30 a.m., he started an old-fashioned campaign walk, pressing the flesh of blue-jacketed union members while he passed by the produce loading docks.

Not surprisingly, Bradley won the enthusiastic endorsement of Teamster official Michael Riley, who called Bradley a “major moving force” in revitalizing the produce mart.