Letters : Los Angeles Primary Elections

This is in response to your editorial (March 24), which urged the reelection of Mayor Tom Bradley.

Business and “civic groups” and special interests who donate to the mayor and city councilmen may have it good, but the ordinary citizen does not.

The departments of city government are quagmires of frustration for the poor, the ordinary, the non-contributors. They do very little to help those without influence and then the help they do give comes only after long months or even years of constantly complaining.

The Department of Building and Safety’s internal operating procedures make it almost impossible to have safe, decent housing in Los Angeles. All procedures favor landlords, including slumlords and landlords in flagrant violation of city ordinances. Yet the mayor, whom I am sure is aware of the problem, does nothing to see that 50% of the rental housing in Los Angeles is made habitable by legal definition.

Two years ago the mayor added many taxes to services, stating it would only be a one-year tax. Obviously that wasn’t and isn’t true. Bradley said the city needed the extra tax last year too to balance his overbloated budget. The city grained extra tax revenues from the Olympics. What happened to that money?

The mayor has added some glamour and glitz to the outside of the city, but down deep the city stagnates with poorly run city departments and decay, i.e., Watts. Citizens are evermore frustrated and asked to pay more and more additional taxes for non-existent improvements.

Mayor Bradley did nothing to try to help RTD riders who will have their fares raised by 70%.

Twelve years is more than enough. Any change would be welcome and now the voters of Los Angeles have the opportunity to make that change.

LOIS NEWMAN

Hollywood

I feel I must respond to your editorial, “Let’s Keep Tom Bradley.” You said he had made changes. I’ll list some.

1--Police force--yes, he’s cut it. He has no love for the police. He blocks them in every way he can, i.e. the Police Commission, which is handpicked by him.

2--Olympics--Thank God Tom Bradley realized he needed a man capable of making the Olympics a success, and was modest enough to admit it. It would have been a complete disaster otherwise if he had picked one of his buddies.

3--Homeless--Isn’t it amazing that just at election time Big Tom thinks about the homeless? The attempt for shelters was not initiated by Bradley but by private citizens. Am I not correct?

4--Crime--Crime is not under control, we have too few police and too many criminals. This can be laid in the lap of Bradley. He cut the police to bits and pieces systematically. The criminals know they have it made in Los Angeles.

ECHO ROBERTS

Gardena

I was astonished at your editorial endorsement (March 26) of Dan Shapiro for Los Angeles city controller as the candidate who has the most financial experience for the job.

Surely his several months chairing the Mayor’s Economic Task Force does not equal Alice Travis’ 3 1/2 years on the City/County Consolidation Commission, a board charged with eliminating duplication in government or her seven years as a state commissioner on the California Council on Criminal Justice where she allocated approximately $80 million yearly and reviewed crime-fighting grants throughout the state.

That comes to more than 10 years of public service without including her employment as a City Council consultant, or her appointment as a city commissioner. Even Mayor Bradley, who appointed Shapiro, is not supporting him for city controller; in fact the mayor has said he believes there are two “most” qualified candidates for this office and Alice Travis is one of them, Shapiro is not the other one.

We in the women’s movement are familiar with the double standard often applied to women candidates as we continue to fight for fairness. However, for The Times to place value on a few months as opposed to Alice Travis’ decade of public service is more than surprising, it is ridiculous.

MARY RAPOPORT

Pacific Palisades

Your editorial endorsement (March 28) of Lisa Specht for city attorney is fascinating. It states, in part, that: “ . . . Lisa Specht has the combination of intelligence and ambition that we believe makes her the best choice for the post.” I have placed the extra emphasis on the word ambition.

If memory serves me correct, in the past, The Times has been extremely critical--in a negative sense--of personal ambition as a commendable attribute in a candidate for prosecutional office. Why the change?

I think your readership deserves a fuller explanation--or some explanation--for this turnabout.

Why is personal ambition a deplorable trait in some candidates and a commendable trait when possessed by a different candidate?

BETTY ROME

Beverly Hills

The Times would be better advised to remain neutral in the race for city attorney. Obviously, the Westside power interests are pushing Specht, for whatever reasons that are not clear.

Certainly her experience and background does not in any way reflect a clear superiority over the rest of the field.

However James Hahn does deserve the front-running position--both for office performance, and we need a Hahn in our political arena. The family name, as your editorial pointed out, has been a source of credit, integrity and morality in the Los Angeles County body politic.

ELI CHEZAR

Santa Monica

The Times’ endorsement of Lisa Specht shows a gross oversight on whoever is responsible for investigating candidates.

Or could it possibly be that The Times has succumbed to pressure by the Henry Waxman-Howard Berman team? Certainly Occidental Petroleum would not put pressure on The Times to support and endorse Lisa Specht. And most certainly The Times has too much integrity for that, or do they?

CHRISTINE GLAZIER

Hollywood

It is with great alarm that I read of your endorsement (March 28) of Betty Blake for the position of member of the Board of Education, District 4. As a rival candidate, I have now been on many podiums with her on the campaign trail, both public and more intimate, and I have yet to hear her explicate one single idea with clarity and specificity.

We have entered a new period of rapid change in the Los Angeles schools and what is needed is a perception from the inside of the daily problems, and an approach that is both professional and incisive.

While Mrs. Blake has been a volunteer on a great number of committees for many years, the work on those committees has not avoided, projected, nor changed the deterioration of the classroom, school grounds, teacher and administrator morale, nor student scores of the Los Angeles system. In effect, they have been largely Blue Ribbon Committees, looking good, but going nowhere.

Overcrowded classes, particularly in the West Valley, understaffed counseling, ineffective curricula, declining achievement, inequitable programming and massive amounts of new paper work connected with the use of computers have brought education to a halt in many places. We need expertise from “inside” the system. In effect, we need far more powerful, professional and effective leadership on that board than Mrs. Blake, with all her devoted experience as a volunteer and committee person, can provide.

ELIZABETH GINSBURG

Woodland Hills

This is in response to your editorial (March 28) endorsing Mary Louise Longoria for the District 6 office of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education. I am a junior high school principal in District 6 who wishes to speak in behalf of incumbent Roberta Weintraub. My student body is predominantly minority.

Mrs. Weintraub is involved in all aspects of our school program. She sends to students and teachers personal notes of recognition for achievement. Other evidence of her sensitivity to our needs is her assistance in areas of instruction and of physical plant security and improvement.

Roberta Weintraub has proven her understanding of and commitment to the educational needs of her constituency.

JEANNE E. HON

Sun Valley

I would like to attempt to refute in some ways your editorial (March 29), “Three for College Trustees.”

To state that your main reason for “endorsing the three incumbents who are running” is because they have “the political clout” to carry through changes in the Legislature is certainly attributing to them influence far beyond what they have demonstrated and what they now have. Up to this time, they have had very little impact as lobbyists for any kind of change in Sacramento.

What makes you so optimistic about their potential? While I strongly agree with you that Sacramento is the logical arena for changes in community college financial policy, I don’t feel that the three incumbents are the ones to effectuate these changes.

The opposition of many to these incumbents is because they have really abdicated too much of their authority to the chancellor. This has affected both their will and their skill in being responsible officials. We need trustees who are sufficiently independent to stand up to the strong bureaucratic power now possessed by the chancellor. The dissatisfaction you speak of on many campuses is because thee is little--if any--change to central authority.

Finally, your reference to reduced classes, cancellation of evening classes and inadequate maintenance of facilities is even more sharply ironic when one contemplates the large amounts of money poured into the downtown offices.

J.D. HESS

Canoga Park

Yes! You are so right. We should reelect Wallace Albertson, Arthur Bronson and Lindsay Conners to the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees. They and their fellow board members have done so much to point out that all of their (the district) troubles are/were caused by Proposition 13 and the state. After all, lack of funds, $50 tuition, free flow of students and so forth are all conditions beyond the board’s control. These are conditions that must be solved at levels outside of the district.

Poor administration, excess college sites, duplicate low enrollment classes, bad student financial aid systems, crude personnel practices, lack of concern for community and invisible up-beat public relations are not reasons to vote out the incumbents. Certainly not! We need their political expertise to pry funds from Sacramento, which will ease the shortcomings of the district. Bad is easier to cover with enough funds.

Los Angeles may need to be reminded of its basic ABC’s. Albertson, Bronson and Conners are not where it’s at. Some other basics (candidates) would at least offer a fresh start?

HOWARD FINK

Van Nuys

It is certainly about time that the Los Angeles City Council reflect the changes and the growth of its population. Charter Amendment 2 is a very modest proposal to enlarge the City Council so that it can more effectively represent the respective community and allow minorities to take an active part in electoral politics.

Unfortunately, throughout history minorities have been under-represented in the political arena and in Los Angeles, where the “minority” is actually the majority, the City Council certainly does not reflect the concerns of the people they supposedly represent.

If this country is truly democratic, there should be no question that this expansion be necessary. It seems as though those in opposition to this proposal are using the question of expenditures as a screen to block the real issue of democracy that actually needs to be addressed.

I agree that this expansion will not guarantee that more equitable minority representation will be secured, but the passage of Charter Amendment 2 is definitely a step in the correct direction.

LINDA J. CAMACHO

Los Angeles