The Friends of Mayor Tom Bradley

The late Jesse Unruh, then Speaker of the California Assembly, once called money “the mother’s milk of politics.” The metaphor is apt and, to extend it just a bit, political money, like milk, quickly goes sour when it is improperly handled. Right now, for example, there is a distinctly unpleasant odor coming from some of the funds Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley collected for his last campaign.

As reported in a series of stories this week by Times staff writers Glenn F. Bunting, Rich Connell, Joel Sappell and Tracy Wood, the money at issue was collected from the proceeds of at least 11 fund-raising carnivals staged on the mayor’s behalf in central Los Angeles during 1987 and 1988. Profits from the carnivals were delivered directly to Bradley as money orders and reported by the mayor’s campaign as anonymous donations of $100 or less. During the two-year period, Bradley’s campaign reported gifts of less than $100 totaling an extraordinary $164,000.

The carnivals from which much of this money appears to have derived seem not to have been clearly advertised as political fund-raising events, which the law requires, and in some instances were staged on city property without permits. The events were arranged by two Bradley supporters--Alan E. Alevy and Mary Anne Singer--who, as another Times story reported, have materially benefited by trading on the mayor’s friendship. Alevy, who also employed Singer in her sometime capacity as a public relations consultant, was assisted by Bradley in his effort to purchase a parcel of city-owned land at a favorable price without competitive bidding.

On a number of occasions, the mayor also has intervened to provide questionable favors for Singer, a contact lens technician whose ready access to the mayor has help her build a small public relations firm. The Times story reported that in 1984, for example, Bradley urged one of his investment advisers to employ Singer in his commodities brokerage. A year later, the mayor asked the city’s Department of Transportation to install stop signs in front of Singer’s residence, even though the department believed the signs were not warranted. Later, while Singer was living in a house owned by Dr. David Levine--Bradley’s personal physician and the holder of lucrative city contracts--the mayor asked city inspectors to visit the home of a neighbor with whom the doctor was engaged in a property dispute.

This dubious pattern of official favors rendered to personal associates is one of the hallmarks of the unresolved ethical crisis now afflicting the mayor’s office. The prospect that some of these and other associates may have improperly raised and reported campaign funds is simply one more disturbing element in an increasingly unsettling picture. And it’s just the kind of murky picture that would benefit from the adoption of the permanent ethical watchdog panel and hard-headed campaign finance reforms recommended in the recent report of the Cowan Commission.