Bradley Puts Prestige on Line in 2 Elections

With only days to go before the election Tuesday, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley is stumping for two City Council candidates whose victories would bolster his political prestige and help preserve his bargaining strength with the council.

“You won’t find a better elected official in the entire country than your council person, Pat Russell,” Bradley told about 120 people at a Westchester senior citizens’ center Thursday. “You have a great, sensitive champion of neighborhood concerns,” Bradley said, maintaining that Russell has improved vitality in the 6th District while respecting the views of residents opposed to excessive development.

The mayor’s visit to Russell’s district was the latest of several on her behalf, including a taped radio commercial and a letter to her constituents.

In office 18 years, Russell, council president, has become the leader of a pro-Bradley coalition that has allowed the mayor to hold sway over the City Council.

Bradley also is scheduled to make several appearances on behalf of candidate Homer Broome Jr., one of 13 contenders in the 10th District race, which is expected to wind up in a runoff. The 10th District seat became vacant last year when Councilman David Cunningham, a Bradley ally, resigned to go into business.

Campaigning for Broome, an old friend from days together on the Los Angeles Police Department, Bradley will be testing his political skills on home turf. The 10th District is where the mayor began his career in elective office 24 years ago as a councilman.

Bradley plans to go on a driving tour of the district on Saturday and to make appearances at local churches on Sunday.

Russell, known as a skillful back-room broker, is one of the most influential members of the council. Her support from important business and political leaders has, however, undercut her reputation in her own district, where she is bedeviled by the charge that she has forgotten about the average constituent.

Russell could be in for her toughest fight since her first election. She is up against five challengers, and a runoff in June is by no means out of the question. She needs more than 50% of the vote in order to avoid it.

For Bradley, a Russell defeat would mean more than the loss of one of his most valuable allies on the council. Russell is under attack in the 6th District for her policies on growth and development--policies which mirror the mayor’s own views.

“We’re very much alike in those areas,” he said Wednesday.

A repudiation of Russell would be widely interpreted as a rejection of Bradley’s approach to urban growth, an issue that is expected to dominate city politics for the next few years.

Playa Vista Plans

Russell is accused of presiding over an orgy of new development--several million square feet--planned for her district over the next several years, most of it in and around the community of Westchester. The largest and most controversial piece of development, known as Playa Vista, would amount to a new town, complete with a cluster of high-rise office buildings, hotels, athletic facilities and housing for up to 30,000 people--to be built on 800 to 900 largely vacant acres just north of Westchester.

Led by Ruth Galanter, an urban planner, and Patrick McCartney, a local journalist, Russell’s opponents charge her with placing a “steel noose” of development around the district in general and around Westchester in particular.

Galanter, the challenger who has raised the most money and received the most endorsements, has showered the district with eye-catching mailers declaring, “Pat Russell has never met a development she doesn’t like.”

The same slogan worked for another council challenger not long ago. It was the battle cry of Michael Woo in his 1984 upset of incumbent Councilwoman Peggy Stevenson. Woo, however, had more money than all of Russell’s challengers combined, and he was running against an incumbent who lacked Russell’s considerable political skills.

Bradley said he does not think Russell is in trouble.

Polls Show Majority

Russell said her polls show her moving toward the same majority, about 57%, that she received last time she ran.

Confidence has not kept her from campaigning hard.

She has spent $232,000, much of it on radio advertising and mailings stressing her argument that she has been an effective advocate of “balanced growth.” She contends that her efforts have ensured that much of the development proposed for the district, including Playa Vista, is substantially less than the legal limits sought by developers.

Westchester, where Russell lives and where she appeared with the mayor, accounted for about 26% of the votes cast in 1983 and could be the key to the election this year.

Westchester constituents range from bitter critics to effusive fans. Among them are Marilyn Cole, who said Russell “locked us out” of negotiations with developers over the size of new projects, and Shirley Pfiel, who said Russell “has cut back on hundreds of thousands of square feet of potential development.”

Ambivalent Voters

There is also a high degree of ambivalence among voters.

“People look at Russell as a knowledgeable, well-connected politician who can get things done. They respect her abilities. But they trust her less and less,” said one Westchester resident who asked to remain anonymous.

“On the other hand,” the resident said, “you look at the challengers and you wonder. You know they’re sincere but you wonder if they will ever have Russell’s stature. McCartney is a good speaker, but he strikes me as sort of a fringe guy. Galanter seems sort of a dilettante. The others aren’t a factor.

“If Russell loses,” the resident said, “it will be because people decided to vote against her and not because they preferred someone else.”