Plan to ‘Resurrect’ South-Central Area Unveiled by Bradley

Amid the garbage and graffiti of a South-Central Los Angeles street corner, Mayor Tom Bradley on Friday announced the formation of a task force to “resurrect this community from the grasp of drug peddlers and gang members.”

“Neglect, vandalism, crime--all have eaten away at the spirit of this community, but we are determined to bring it back,” Bradley said in announcing what aides described as the most comprehensive effort yet to revitalize the economically blighted sector south of downtown.

The task force is to be made up of nine committees, which will explore gangs and drugs, economic development, job training, education, neighborhood beautification, senior citizen services, affordable housing and other central issues. The committees--made up of city officials, community activists, academicians and educators--are to make recommendations to the mayor in 60 days.

A Subtle Turn

The announcement was seen by some community activists as marking a subtle turn in Bradley’s political focus. For years, South-Central community leaders have grumbled privately that the five-term Democrat has not done enough for the poor neighborhoods, though they publicly stood firm with him.

Some community and political leaders from South-Central said Friday that it is only now, in possibly his last term in office, that Bradley is confident and secure enough as a black politician to take care of the very neighborhoods that spawned his career. Others said they see his latest initiative as an attempt to put the final touches on his legacy.

“Now he feels free to do it,” said Bob Gay, an aide to City Councilman Gilbert Lindsay, who represents the district. “He wants to go out in a blaze of glory where he started.”

Sweeping Proposal

The mayor’s announcement--one week after his inauguration and one day after an equally sweeping proposal to clean up the city’s 28 public housing projects--is one of what aides say will be a series of proposals by Bradley to flesh out the general theme of his inauguration speech: to make Los Angeles a more livable city.

Deputy Mayor Mike Gage took exception to any characterization that Bradley’s formation of the task force was to make up for lack of attention in the past.

“This is not a deviation or a aberration, but a continuation” of Bradley’s efforts to aid the depressed area, Gage said. “He’s making the commitment of additional resources now because the need is there.”

Bradley said the South-Central effort will mean a redeployment of existing city services, such as street cleaning and other public works projects, but “much of it will be new ideas, new services and programs” to be developed by the community leaders on the task force. “We want their input. That’s why we’re here,” he said.

Time Spans for Projects

Some projects will begin as soon as Monday, when Bradley said workers with the Clean and Green youth jobs program will begin cleaning up streets, alleys and other public areas. Other programs, such as job training, will take years to bear fruit, he said.

“Central Avenue was once a thriving center for commerce and activity,” Bradley said. “Over the years, the condition of this lifeline of South-Central has deteriorated. Starting at the grass-roots level, we will get every sector of this community involved in directing the rebirth of this area.

“We are expecting help from the federal government, but we will not wait for other government agencies . . . we will get it done,” he said to enthusiastic applause from the two dozen civic leaders who stood with him at the announcement. The spontaneous reaction of the crowd brought a smiling Bradley to repeat his central slogan for the day: “We will get it done.”

‘He’ll Do It Again’

The Rev. E. B. Hill of the Mt. Zion Church in South-Central told the crowd: “The thing that makes this exciting today is the one who is making the promise. He’s the one who said we’ll have a successful port. It happened. He said, ‘Let’s bring the Olympics to Los Angeles and not go broke doing it.’ It happened. . . . Now we’re here at 45th Street and Central Avenue. He did it before and he’ll do it again.”

Kerman Maddox, a former Bradley aide and now political consultant, said, “It’s great; it’s the kind of thing people have been waiting for.” When reminded that this is now Bradley’s fifth four-year term as mayor, Maddox smiled and said: “Better late than never. And now everyone is coming together to celebrate it happening.”

Long Overdue

Though the community leaders agreed that attempting to tackle the job is long overdue, most of those interviewed defended Bradley’s record of aiding the South-Central neighborhoods.

Hill said Bradley had to stabilize and then expand Los Angeles’ business community in his earlier terms, before taking on massive problems such as unemployment, poverty, high school dropouts, drugs and crime that plague South-Central.

In Bradley’s first four terms, his most notable successes involved expansion of the city’s port facilities and development of the downtown business district. Redevelopment of Los Angeles International Airport was a third leg of the economic infrastructure Bradley pieced together to, among other things, create jobs.

Many Problems

Hill, like others, said it would have been politically impossible for Bradley, as the city’s first black mayor, to make South-Central a focus in his earlier terms of office.

State Assemblywoman Teresa P. Hughes, who represents much of the South-Central area, said that as mayor of the whole city, Bradley has had to deal with many problems. “This city is so huge” and has so many problems, she said. “Where do you put out the fire? Where it is burning the most. And that’s right here, right now.”

Juanita Tate of the Concerned Citizens of South-Central said that a similarly sweeping effort to revitalize South-Central in earlier years may not have worked. But now, she said, the community is determined to do something about its problems.

“Until you educate the people in the neighborhoods (that they can control their own destiny), it doesn’t matter what the mayor comes down here with,” Tate said.