Probes of Bradley Taking Toll on Image at City Hall

Affable and relaxed, Mayor Tom Bradley faced the news media one morning last week to announce a new program aimed at cutting traffic and air pollution.

The event followed the customary format: a speech by the mayor, explanations from aides and then the reporters’ turn.

“Now, smart alecks, ask some questions,” Bradley said, turning to the cameras.

Intended as an icebreaker, the remark got a laugh, but it underscored the frustration of the five-term mayor as he tries to divert the attention of the press and public from his financial affairs and project an image of business-as-usual at City Hall.

Six months of persistent stories about local and, more recently, federal investigations have taken their toll and signs have emerged that business is anything but usual at City Hall. Not only has Bradley encountered what he considers a hostile press corps for the first time in his career, but he also faces increasing and unaccustomed friction with the 15-member City Council.

“Tom was very popular and it was not fashionable to take your cuts at him,” Councilwoman Joy Picus said last week. “Now people don’t mind saying what they think and they can be very mean. This man who was, in fact, a paragon of virtue has been blemished.” A liberal who has worked with Bradley on issues such as child care, Picus has nevertheless criticized him over the years as inaccessible to council members.

Boldness in the Council

Emboldened by what they view as a weakened and distracted mayor, some members of the City Council have begun seizing power, pushing harder for their own agendas, and testing the water for runs at Bradley’s job, possibly before his term ends in 3 1/2 years.

“There are many council members who are considering whether they should make a run for the mayor’s office,” said Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, who has been cautious in her criticism of the mayor. “And it’s never too early to start.”

In recent months, there has been a noticeable change in the relationship between the mayor’s office and the City Council, Flores said. “Members who in the past have been kind of laid back and accepting of recommendations are becoming more vocal,” she said, and easy passage of the mayor’s priority programs “is no longer a given.”

Councilman Michael Woo, whose Ad Hoc Ethics Committee began hearings last week on the city attorney’s investigation of the mayor, said he sees signs of “chaos” in leadership at City Hall.

Bradley may no longer be able to provide “a strong vision of the future for the city,” said Woo, who was elected four years ago when he unseated a Bradley ally. “I don’t know where that vision is going to come from if it’s not coming from the mayor.”

“Trying to move the City Council now is like trying to lead a herd of cats,” Woo said last week. “You’ve got to have some glue to hold things together. There is no glue here.”

Bradley aides deny that the mayor’s office has been hobbled by the continuing scandal and say that initiatives announced in Bradley’s inaugural address three months ago are going forward. They say that new initiatives are being announced every week but that the news media, especially The Times, have intentionally ignored them.

Complaints About Coverage

“If the Los Angeles Times were effective in crippling Tom Bradley, all you would do is cripple the city of Los Angeles,” Michael Gage, Bradley’s chief of staff, said in an interview Friday. City Council members, he said, take their cue from The Times.

“There’s been a blatant attempt by the Los Angeles Times to blank Tom Bradley out of the paper with anything positive,” Gage said.

For example, he said, The Times last week played on the obituary page a story on the mayor’s press conference to denounce U.S. Senate passage of a bill that would exclude illegal aliens from the 1990 Census. The same day, Gage said, The Times reported on the front of the Metro section that Bradley had turned over his income tax returns to the U.S. attorney’s office as part of a federal probe of the mayor.

Deputy Managing Editor Noel Greenwood said that The Times has assessed news from the mayor’s office according to standards of relevance and fairness, and will continue to do so.

Bradley has been at the center of an ethical controversy since last March, when the first reports of his dealings with Far East National Bank surfaced publicly. Bradley was paid $18,000 as a consultant to the bank, which received $2 million in city deposits.

Last month, City Atty. James K. Hahn filed a civil suit against Bradley for failing to disclose major personal stock holdings, but said he did not find sufficient evidence to bring criminal charges. A federal grand jury investigation of the mayor’s finances has not been completed.

As the investigations have mounted, Bradley has made fewer public appearances and vanished from public view for several days at a stretch on two occasions--the latest last week when The Times disclosed details of the federal grand jury investigation. He has dramatically cut back on contact with the press and refused to be interviewed for this article.

One indication of the council’s invigoration during the last six months is a broad reorganization of its committee structure to focus more attention on issues such as housing and the environment.

In one move that appeared specifically aimed at the mayor, the council created a committee to assume authority over the multibillion-dollar Community Redevelopment Agency, a domain that had been strictly the mayor’s. Last week, the committee refused to endorse a CRA plan to pay the Union Rescue Mission $6.5 million to vacate its downtown building.

The plan goes before the City Council this week, but its prospects for approval are unclear.

The strongest opposition came from Councilwoman Gloria Molina, chairwoman of the recently created Community Redevelopment and Housing Committee, who complained last week that the CRA was attempting to rush the plan through and had not provided the council with enough information about the deal.

Ferraro’s Assessment

The council’s attack on the CRA has “been coming on for some time,” said City Council President John Ferraro, the architect of the new committee system. “The CRA’s been running around without any controls over it.

“There’s concern that the mayor’s been wounded, and maybe he has been,” added Ferraro, who ran against Bradley in 1985. “But I don’t think it affects the city operation.”

Gage, the mayor’s aide, said Bradley does not consider the new oversight of CRA a slap, but instead points to the fact that the council voted down a proposal to take over the CRA entirely. That, he said, was a recent victory for the mayor.

“I think some council members have allowed themselves to be sidetracked,” Gage said. “At least half of them want to be mayor. Given that the mayor has been battered pretty badly, why shouldn’t they feel their oats?

“But it takes one person to provide leadership and each time one of them pokes his head up, the others will push him down.”

Another indication of the mayor’s loss of influence was a rare council override last week of a Bradley veto. It came in the matter of a temporary moratorium on building in two pockets of the 10th District, represented by Councilman Nate Holden, a Bradley foe.

Holden had backed the moratorium and won council approval, but Bradley vetoed it. The council override, which came in a vote last Wednesday, prompted further speculation about Bradley’s leadership role.

“I’m worried that the vote sets a precedent for the future and points to chaos,” said Woo. “Even at best we suffer from a dispersal of authority. We run the risk of heading into uncharted waters.”