Bradley Supporters Vote to Disband Committee

A political fund-raising committee set up by supporters of Mayor Tom Bradley voted unanimously Friday to disband and return nearly $300,000 in donations gathered since last fall, its leader said.

Prominent attorney Richard J. Riordan said seven senior members of the Committee for the Future of Los Angeles, which he has headed since late spring, voted unanimously to return the money rather than disburse it to charity. Those were the only two options considered, Riordan said.

The attorney said committee members did not discuss using the money to defray mounting legal bills for the mayor, who on Saturday summoned almost three dozen longtime contributors to his Hancock Park home and asked for their help in paying for his battery of lawyers. A Bradley confidante has said the mayor’s legal fees are running roughly $100,000 a month.

Riordan also said that neither the mayor nor his allies had asked that the money be offered to Bradley.

The disbanding of the fund-raising committee was “absolutely not” meant as a signal of eroding support for the beleaguered mayor, Riordan said.

As investigations into Bradley’s financial conduct have escalated, his politically powerful supporters have indicated growing concern over the future of his mayoralty, with some openly stating that the controversy has limited Bradley’s effectiveness in dealing with the city’s pressing urban problems.

The committee’s dissolution was planned for some time, Riordan said, and was not connected to the release Friday of Bradley’s amended financial disclosure statements, which had been sought by the state Fair Political Practices Commission in the wake of investigations into Bradley’s fiscal dealings.

The committee, which was organized last year, was led by several Bradley allies, including Fran Savitch, formerly a chief mayoral aide; William Robertson, organized labor’s local leader; attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. and former Harbor Commission President Ira Distenfield.