Group of Disabled Assail Bradley; 6 Quit as Advisers

Jane Small ran the Central Avenue campaign office 20 years ago for a tall, ex-cop city councilman named Tom Bradley who was trying to become mayor of Los Angeles.

He lost, and Small was out of the city when Bradley was finally elected in 1973. But on Thursday, Small found herself outside Bradley’s suite of offices in City Hall with about a dozen other disabled persons, chanting angry slogans about the mayor into the stoic faces of two security guards who blocked their entry.

The disabled were there to protest Bradley’s record on disabled issues, most particularly his decision last year to hire a psychologist who is not disabled to run the mayor’s Office for the Disabled. To some disabled people, the hiring was as surprising as if Bradley named a man to run the city Commission on the Status of Women or designated a white aide as his liaison to black neighborhoods in South-Central Los Angeles.

Small, who has become disabled since the 1969 campaign, and five other protesters backed up their words by resigning Thursday from the city Advisory Council on Disability. The six who resigned included Nadia Powers, the council’s president.

Bradley was in Washington on Thursday to testify before a Senate committee on Metro Rail funding, but the resignations were accepted by Deputy Mayor Mike Gage during a courteous 30-minute meeting with Small and the other advisory council members. Gage said the mayor would carefully read their complaints, but he defended Bradley’s record on disabled issues.

Late in the day, however, Bradley’s office announced that the mayor would call for creation of a formal city commission to advocate for the disabled, one of the demands voiced by Small and the protesters. The commission idea was under consideration long before the Thursday protest, Gage said. Last year, Bradley had already established a formal Commission on Handicapped Access to advise the Department of Building and Safety on needs of the disabled.

But the mayor sent word that he was standing behind his hiring of Isabelle Egan to run the Office for the Disabled, which administers grant funds and helps place disabled persons in jobs.

Gage said Bradley had found Egan to be the most qualified applicant to run the Office for the Disabled, even after taking into consideration that she was not disabled. She has a grown, disabled daughter, Gage said, and “has been involved with the disabled for 22 years. It’s not as if she is unaware of disabled concerns.”

The delegation of disabled persons, who carried letters from several organizations that represent the disabled denouncing Bradley, had begun the day by holding a rally in the park outside City Hall, where several speakers said Bradley overlooked people who were better qualified than Egan.

There were also many complaints that the naming of a non-disabled person was insulting in that it suggested that disabled people need someone to take care of them. “We the disabled people of Los Angeles just want to speak for ourselves,” said Sally Lucas, who also resigned in protest Thursday from the city Advisory Council on Disability. “We don’t need somebody else telling us what we need.”

A number of speakers, including Small, said they had been Bradley supporters but have come to feel that he is insensitive to the disabled. They were especially critical of the mayor’s aide who works with the disabled, Bill Elkins, who also performs a number of functions on the mayor’s staff.

In her resignation letter, Small said that in the 1969 campaign, in which Bradley lost to Sam Yorty, “we worked so hard and we were all so disappointed when you (Bradley) didn’t win. But we still shared the hopes and dreams. Now they are no more than soft, and sometimes bitter memories. . . . I am sad, but more than that, I am very, very angry.”

At his meeting with the dissatisfied representatives of the disabled, Gage said that Bradley should get credit for establishing the first mayoral office for the disabled in the country in 1973.

The city has also led in making curb cuts to allow wheelchairs to pass over curbs, Gage said, although a number of the protesters said they had noted several violations of federal guidelines for handicapped access just getting into the City Hall park for the protest.

“Do we have some problems yet?” Gage said. “You bet. They have some legitimate concerns, and we want to continue to work with them.”

But Gage rejected any argument that the protest Thursday represented a maelstrom of discontent about Bradley among the disabled. Most of the advisory council is satisfied with the mayor, Gage said.

“Understand, only six people out of 45 resigned. This is not exactly a tidal wave,” he said.