Bradley, Yaroslavksy in War of Words Over City Hall Attendance

Campaigning for mayor will not officially begin in Los Angeles for three weeks, but that did not stop Mayor Tom Bradley and City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky from zinging arrows at each other Tuesday.

Did they debate solutions to gang violence? Perhaps traffic snarls or smog? No, the clash was over attendance in City Hall, a less weighty topic but grounds for an unusually spirited exchange.

By the end of the day, both sides could claim credit for smoking out some of the issues destined to arise as personal attacks in the campaign that ends with the April 11 election.

Yaroslavsky began the competition Tuesday morning by calling City Hall reporters together to propose a reform in answer to the controversy over the six-month absence of City Housing Authority Chairman Alvin Greene.

Greene, a Bradley appointee paid $50 for meetings he attended, resigned at the mayor’s request after news reports listed his absences. The controversy grew, nonetheless, when senior aides challenged statements by Deputy Mayor Mike Gage that Bradley acted as soon as he learned Greene was a problem.

Taking a jab at Bradley and Gage, who is supposed to keep incipient controversies in check before they rebound on the mayor, Yaroslavsky urged Tuesday that the attendance records of the city’s more than 200 commissioners be reported directly to the mayor and the City Council.

“It is a travesty that should not be repeated,” Yaroslavsky said.

Under his measure, Yaroslavsky added, “there will be no excuses--no excuses from the mayor, no excuses from the deputy mayor.”

Normally, lack of attendance at meetings is no grounds for a political beheading. The Housing Authority Commission, in particular, is one of several that attracts little attention. As Gage noted Tuesday, 90% of Bradley’s commissioners have faithfully shown up as promised.

Greene Episode

However, Yaroslavsky has portrayed the Greene episode as evidence of a leadership lapse. Even if Bradley did not know about Greene’s absences, the situation revealed a breakdown in his management, the Westside councilman said.

Bradley made only a brief reference to Yaroslavsky Tuesday, ending a mid-morning news conference on an unrelated topic by referring questions on “the phony political issue raised by this councilman” to Gage.

The quick response of Bradley aides suggested that this was no unplanned quip by the mayor. They were ready with a written statement from Gage that raised questions about Yaroslavsky’s own record.

“It’s thoroughly hypocritical of Mr. Yaroslavsky, who earns $55,929 a year as a full-time employee of the city, to bring so much attention to the attendance record of the city’s volunteer commissioners when his own City Council record is so dismal.”

The record, Gage wrote, shows that Yaroslavsky has attended just one of the 15 meetings held by the council’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee since September, 1987, and five of 18 sessions of the Public Health, Human Resources and Senior Citizens Committee.

“If Mr. Yaroslavsky was a volunteer city commissioner with either of these deplorable attendance records, he would have quickly been fired,” Gage added in the statement.

Long Session

Later, in a long session with reporters, Gage turned up the heat by calling on Yaroslavsky to return some of his salary for the missed meetings.

He also suggested that Yaroslavsky might be using the time to phone potential campaign contributors.

“Is he just dialing for dollars for his campaign?” Gage asked.

As quickly as Gage turned the issue of the day back on Yaroslavsky, the councilman reloaded and fired back.

In quick interviews during Tuesday’s City Council meeting, he defended his attendance lapses by saying he did not miss any committee sessions where his presence was necessary.

Further, Yaroslavsky said, he attended all 52 meetings this year of the Revenue and Finance Committee, a far more important panel of which he is chairman, and has one of the best attendance records at full City Council meetings.

Later in the afternoon, Yaroslavsky chose to unveil statistics that aides were hoping to save for the campaign--the details on Bradley’s travels out of the city, often to foreign lands.

The mayor had flown off on 19 trips since July 1, 1987, for a total of 91 days away from Los Angeles, Yaroslavsky said in a statement.

Gang Violence

“While Tom Bradley has jet-setted around the globe, Los Angeles faces ever-rising problems of gang violence, traffic congestion and water and air pollution. Tom Bradley should mind his own record of attendance . . . before he criticizes anyone else.”

Retorting in kind, Gage said the trips were on official city business, often to promote use of the city’s airports and San Pedro deep-water port--”a role of the mayor that the councilman clearly doesn’t understand.”

During the parrying, Yaroslavsky began to show his frustration at the increased attacks directed his way by Gage, who has turned into the mayor’s surrogate on many controversies, particularly those calling for a response to remarks by Yaroslavsky.

Yaroslavsky dismissed Gage as the mayor’s “handler” and said of Bradley: “I hope the mayor will have the guts to come out of the closet . . . and debate me on the issues. . . . It’s time for Tom Bradley to come out and speak for himself.”

Meanwhile, Yaroslavsky declined Tuesday to put to rest what looms as a potential controversy when he announces his expected candidacy in January--the role of political consultants Michael Berman and Carl D’Agostino.

Strategy Memos

Last summer, Yaroslavsky vowed not to hire Berman and D’Agostino for the mayoral campaign after strategy memos containing ethnic references were leaked to The Times.

Since November, Yaroslavsky has gradually backed away from the vow, and Tuesday he called Berman and D’Agostino valued friends and said, “I have not precluded” retaining their firm, BAD Campaigns Inc., to direct his mayoral campaign.