The Bradley Challenges . . .

When Tom Bradley first was elected mayor of Los Angeles in 1973, he faced two immediate problems: In the first instance, he had to convince the city’s anxious white middle class that there was nothing inherently threatening about being governed by a black chief executive; in the second, he had to demonstrate to a suspicious downtown business Establishment that to be black was not necessarily to be an economic populist.

Over the past 16 years, Bradley has overcome both these problems brilliantly. His critics--and some of this friends--would argue, in fact, that he has pursued these ends to the exclusion of other, equally pressing, civic needs. The mayor and his most fervent supporters would deny this, of course. But, as Bradley begins an historic fifth term with the narrowest popular mandate of his long incumbency, it cannot be denied that he again confronts problems of confidence-building.

Resolving the first of these will require dispelling the cloud of doubt that has arisen over the mayor’s private business dealings, particularly those stemming from his service as a director of Valley Federal Savings and Loan and as an adviser to Far East Bank. Under any reasonable interpretation of the term, Bradley’s shadowy second career in commerce constitutes a conflict of interest with his obligations as mayor.

Happily, Bradley also indicated that he intends to attack the problem at its root. He already has severed his ties to the bank, and Wednesday he resigned as an emeritus director of the savings and loan. He also announced the appointment of a committee to draft a code of ethics for city officials that will be “clearer and cleaner than any comparable law at any level of government anywhere in America.”

“There is nothing more important to me,” Bradley said, “than my bond of trust with the people, forged over my 47 years as a police officer, a member of the City Council and as mayor.”

Joined as they are to concrete proposals, these are reassuring sentiments. So, too, was the mayor’s expression of his “determination to hold my office to the highest standards.” So he should; so shall we.

It remains for Bradley to provide equal reassurance that, at 71 years of age, he retains the vigor and vision to successfully engage the city’s mounting problems. Some--such as intolerable congestion, air pollution, inadequate waste disposal and excessive development--are unwelcome adjuncts of the unprecedented prosperity Los Angeles has enjoyed during four Bradley administrations. Other problems--such as gang and drug-related crime and a housing policy as ramshackle as the projects it purports to supervise--have been exacerbated by mayoral neglect.

As a politician who, by temperment and design, has made himself at home in the city’s board rooms and corridors of power, Bradley has too often been silent about Los Angeles’ growing disparities of income and educational opportunity; its unequal access to decent health care and affordable housing, and its destructive and dangerous racial and ethnic isolation.

Following his victory Tuesday, the mayor promised to renew his commitment to safe streets and clean air, and pledged that “during the next four years I will be a vigorous, all-out mayor.”

“I intend,” Bradley said, “to make the next four years the most active, the most productive and the most progressive in the long history of our city.”

These, too, are welcome sentiments. But to translate them into a program equal to the rhetoric, the mayor will have to confront the feelings of alienation and powerlessness so widespread among Angelenos and the popular indifference to local politics they have engendered. The corrosive impact of these elements was all too evident in the fact that fewer than one in four eligible voters bothered to cast a ballot this week. Turnout was the lowest ever recorded in a mayoral election.

Convincing more of Los Angeles’ people that city government is not indifferent to their problems and enlisting them in a search for solutions are Tom Bradley’s biggest challenges.