AIDS Activist Claims Mayor Slowed Hospice : Health care: He calls Bradley’s program ‘more symbolism than substance.’ City says the project is being built more quickly than most.

A prominent Los Angeles AIDS activist Monday accused Mayor Tom Bradley of delaying construction of a much-needed AIDS hospice by failing to cut through red tape and holding up nearly $650,000 in promised funding.

Michael Weinstein, who in 1988 led a successful fight to persuade Bradley to set up an AIDS program in City Hall, charged that the city program has “added just one more layer of bureaucracy.”

“The mayor’s AIDS program is more symbolism than substance,” said Weinstein, the president of the AIDS Hospice Foundation.

The city, he said, has failed to expedite various permits needed for construction of the Carl Bean AIDS Care Center, a $3-million 25-bed hospice under construction on West Adams Boulevard near Western Avenue. As a result, he said at a press conference on site, the hospice is about a year behind schedule and will not open until 1992.

Three officials from the mayor’s office, who showed up at the press conference, defended Bradley’s funding of AIDS programs, noting that the city will have spent $4 million on housing for AIDS patients by the end of the year. The Bean Center, they said, is actually proceeding faster than most other building projects in the city.

“From the mayor’s office point of view, we feel this (press conference) is unfortunate because the mayor has been a leader on this issue,” said Wendy Greuel, who serves as Bradley’s liaison on AIDS issues. “This project has gotten more funds committed to it by far than any other project we’ve ever funded.”

Phill Wilson, the mayor’s AIDS coordinator, said he has been working with federal agencies to expedite funding programs that could cut costs for the Bean Center. The city has waived some permit costs for the project, he said, and has interceded on behalf of the center to seek federal funding.

Bradley announced in December, 1988, that he was going to set up an AIDS program coordinator under the umbrella of the Community Redevelopment Agency. He said the CRA would provide $1 million for housing assistance for people with AIDS. The Bean Center was earmarked to receive the lion’s share of the money.

Bradley’s press spokesman, Bill Chandler, asserted that Weinstein’s AIDS Hospice Foundation had held up funding itself by refusing to pay “prevailing wages” for construction workers as required by federal and local agencies.

Weinstein said the foundation would be happy to pay prevailing wages if the city released the funds. He said the organization paid such wages during remodeling of the Chris Brownlie Hospice in Elysian Park.

Because construction has gone slowly on the Bean Center, Weinstein said, a 12-bed emergency residential care center was set up in Hollywood on a temporary basis last December. Another 25-bed hospice in Norwalk is far behind schedule because funds intended for it have been borrowed so work on the Bean Center can proceed, he said.

Weinstein said he is confident the city will eventually turn over the funds for the hospice, but that it has failed to expedite the permit processes and other bureaucratic procedures to meet the urgent needs of dying AIDS patients.

“I would just like to see the mayor step forward and recommit himself to this project,” he said.