News Analysis : Triumphal March Turns Into a Difficult Trek for Bradley

This was supposed to be the easy final two weeks of Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley’s triumphal march toward a fifth term.

But it has not happened that way. Instead, Bradley has had to confront stories raising questions about how he and his Administration deal with some of Los Angeles’ poorest citizens--and some of its most influential.

Even supporters criticized Bradley’s commitment to housing for the poor Sunday after the resignation of the administrator of his Housing Authority. She quit after weeks of revelations in The Times of mismanagement of an organization that provides housing to some of Los Angeles’ poorest residents. Tenant complaints about bad conditions in the housing projects have been part of those stories.

At the same time, Bradley has had to contend with stories that told of his relations with the wealthy. Those accounts, taken up with enthusiasm by Bradley opponent City Councilman Nate Holden, have revealed how the mayor has earned $24,000 a year for the last decade for serving on the board of a savings and loan institution and an $18,000 fee for being an adviser to a bank with which the city does business.

The issues have received wide publicity as the April 11 election approaches, raising an intriguing question: What if the mayor had been opposed by the well-financed Zev Yaroslavsky, who could have blasted him on the issues in political advertising? Instead, Yaroslavsky, fearing Bradley was unbeatable, dropped out in January, and the mayor is opposed by foes running on a shoestring.

The Housing Authority story, in particular, has raised deep concerns among the mayor’s most loyal supporters, particularly some of those in the black community, about the administration’s treatment of the poor.

“On the Housing Authority, I have some serious concerns,” said John Mack, who heads the Los Angeles Urban League. “The leadership has been one continuous soap opera the last few years. The commission and the staff are in business to provide housing for low-income citizens, many of whom are African-Americans living in South-Central Los Angeles who are in desperate need of affordable housing.

“The mayor has to share some of the responsibility,” he said. “I don’t think the problems of the housing commission are completely (due to) the mayor . . . but the mayor has some responsibilities in that regard.”

Mark Ridley-Thomas, who heads the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Los Angeles, said, “I suspect it has to be said, in all honesty, that the Bradley Administration has not paid sufficient attention to the issues of housing in Los Angeles.”

Ridley-Thomas said “the issue is his capacity and ability to move the downtown bureaucracy” into pushing developers to build more low-income housing. “But what that costs him in his relationships with developers who are more into commercial enterprises than housing stock is another question,” Ridley-Thomas said.

Bradley himself declined to comment on the Housing Authority situation Sunday as he prepared to lead a “Mothers March for Peace” in South-Central Los Angeles, aimed at fighting drugs and gang violence.

But a supporter attending the same event, City Councilman Robert Farrell, said that the difficulties of providing low-cost housing to Los Angeles are too great for one mayor to solve.

“There is inadequate federal funding, and that gets into the issue of maintenance (of the projects),” Farrell said.

And Deputy Mayor Mike Gage said: “As long as there is poverty and as long as there are low-income people, and that is probably since the history of man began, you haven’t done enough. But nobody I know thinks one human being can make it right tomorrow or the next day.”

The statements of Farrell and Gage contrasted sharply with the rhetoric of the mayor when he was first elected in 1973, a liberal Democrat, raised in the poverty of South-Central Los Angeles, victim of anti-black discrimination. He moved into City Hall at the head of a group of liberal reformers determined to bring economic and social justice to the city. They all said one man could make a difference.

But it was also quickly clear that Bradley believed that the best way to promote prosperity at the bottom was to help those at the top and let the money trickle down.

He pushed through a huge downtown redevelopment plan that set the stage for today’s high-rise Los Angeles.

He revived the harbor. The airport prospered. Huge developments were built on the Westside and in the San Fernando Valley.

Bradley himself seemed to enjoy the company of the wealthy, attending top-drawer events. He carefully built himself a substantial personal investment portfolio.

Over the years, grass-roots groups increased their criticism of the mayor, saying he has forgotten his South-Central roots. The criticism has centered on Bradley’s Community Redevelopment Agency, the government arm that created the new downtown.

That agency, critics said, has not provided enough low-income housing.

Gage, in the interview, denied that. “The mayor has come out with more housing initiatives in the last two years than (the mayor of) any city in the nation,” he said.

But the juxtaposition of the story about the inadequacies of the low-income Housing Administration, and the accounts of Bradley’s ties to financial institutions, have given a possible opening to opponent Holden, which he is likely to use in the campaign’s last days, as attention on it increases.

Bradley, in fact, took note of Holden as a serious opponent for the first time Sunday. As he was interviewed, the mayor blamed his political opponents for the stories about his connections to the financial institutions. A reporter noted that the newspapers actually broke the news, not his opponents.

“The whole thing was distorted out of proportion and out of factual connotation by Nate Holden, who is my opponent for mayor,” Bradley said.

Then he turned, and walked away.