Bradley Drops Plan for Department Hearings

Mayor Tom Bradley is planning a major shake-up in the commissions that oversee the City Hall bureaucracy, but has abandoned plans to hold unprecedented hearings on the performance of individual departments, a spokesman disclosed Thursday.

Bradley had announced his intent to hold the performance hearings for each of 21 city departments Feb. 2. Beginning in March, he said, a department selected by his office would be the subject of a two-day hearing during which the public would be able to offer their pet peeves about the bureaucracy. The hearings were to have continued on a monthly basis until all 21 departments had been held up to public scrutiny.

The plan, which he had proclaimed would have a major impact on city departments, never got off the ground and has been abandoned, his press secretary, Bill Chandler, said Thursday.