Bradley Comes Calling on Orange County : Mayor Denounces Deukmejian Positions in Series of Speeches

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who plans to try again next year to become governor, worked his way across Orange County Friday with denunciations of Gov. George Deukmejian’s positions on offshore oil drilling, education and transportation.

Bradley attended a conference on Pacific Rim trade Thursday night, gave breakfast and luncheon speeches to separate groups Friday, and met with Democratic activists in the county in what aides said was an attempt to pay more attention to Orange County than he did in 1982, when he narrowly lost to Deukmejian.

In a luncheon address in Santa Ana to the County Club, a 100-member, bipartisan group founded five years ago, Bradley jokingly claimed that “this wasn’t designed to be a partisan speech.”

But he characterized Deukmejian’s record as an example of “failed leadership” and declared that “caretaker government simply won’t work.”

Oil Position Criticized

The mayor, who has been criticized for allowing onshore drilling in Pacific Palisades, berated Deukmejian for not supporting an additional one-year moratorium on drilling for oil in ocean waters off California.

Bradley said Deukmejian’s suggestion that each tract of water be examined to determine if drilling would hurt the environment was flawed because “we have never found a tract that George Deukmejian didn’t think was appropriate for oil drilling.”

Bradley chastised Deukmejian for what he said was the governor’s refusal to provide funds to hire engineers to plan needed roads and freeways in Orange County. He also attacked Deukmejian’s record on education, saying the governor had vetoed legislation to reduce class sizes.

The mayor also promoted one of his major political initiatives in his still unannounced bid to become governor: a proposal for greater conservation of water in Southern California and measures to provide more water to the region without taking it from Northern California.