Bradley Urges a New Jobs-for-Youth Mural Program

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley wants to resurrect a citywide mural program that was closed down five years ago. At the same time, the mayor hopes his new plan will help fight the spread of graffiti throughout the city.

The $250,000 “Neighborhood Pride” mural and anti-graffiti program, proposed by Bradley on Tuesday as part of his overall $2.9-billion 1988-89 city budget, will fund the creation and restoration of murals by local artists and employ youths, aged 14-21, at minimum wage to assist the artists.

The mayor’s office calls the program--which must be approved by the City Council--an effort to “divert energies wasted on graffiti to artistic work” while giving “young people a proprietary interest in these murals so that they don’t deface them.”

“We see the program as complementing some of our other efforts to divert youths from delinquency in the community,” said the Mayor’s Budget Director Anton Caleia in a telephone interview Tuesday.

These other efforts, Caleia said, include a “Clean and Green” job program, also proposed by the Mayor Tuesday, utilizing youths to clean streets and graffiti, and existing anti-drug and crime programs such as D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education).

Mural defacement by graffiti is a chronic problem in Los Angeles, officials say. The city boasts about 1,000 murals and is often called the mural capital of the country by public art experts.

Under the mayor’s proposal, the new mural and anti-graffiti program is to be administered by the nonprofit Venice-based Social and Public Arts Resource Center.

The center’s director, artist Judith Baca, initiated the new program’s predecessor, the Citywide Murals Program, in 1974. That program, which produced about 250 murals in the city, was killed off in 1983 partly because of Proposition 13-induced cutbacks in government spending in California.

Baca said plans for the program include the creation of new murals in “particularly blighted areas, where there’s a real need for neighborhood pride,” adding that many murals will be “fairly expressive of a part of a community and its culture.”

“I am aiming for a program of substantial impact, but I don’t know whether that will mean nine murals or 10 murals,” Baca said in a telephone interview.

If approved by the City Council, the new program will begin in July. In a related matter, the Council is scheduled to vote within about 60 days on a proposed ordinance to protect and preserve murals and other public artworks in Los Angeles.