Bradley Plans Trip to Japan Despite Critics : Travel: Mayor and harbor officials are to visit Tokyo next month. Yaroslavsky calls for an end to all unnecessary jaunts.

Despite mounting criticism of “extravagant” foreign travel, Mayor Tom Bradley’s office confirmed Tuesday that he is considering another overseas jaunt within weeks of returning from his current European tour.

Bradley may visit Tokyo next month, along with Harbor Department officials, to complete an agreement on a $180-million coal exporting facility proposed for the Port of Los Angeles. Tentative plans call for the group to leave April 14 for Tokyo, the first stop on what would be--at least for port officials--a two-week trip to Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani said a final decision on Bradley’s travel will depend on the aftermath of verdicts in the federal civil rights trial of four Los Angeles police officers charged in the beating of Rodney G. King.

Nevertheless, the possibility of another trade mission by Bradley--at a time of ethnic tensions and economic woes in the city--led even some of his oldest and closest advisers to privately question his judgment.

“It’s pretty awful,” one longtime Bradley insider said. “He’s done so much good for the city and now this (travel). The legacy he is leaving is sort of ugly . . . and that’s a shame.”

Meanwhile, City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky called Tuesday for a suspension of all but the most essential foreign travel, increasing criticism of the trips that began last month with City Controller Rick Tuttle.

Officials would have to submit all trip plans to the City Council and send only one official to each destination under Yaroslavsky’s proposal, which is scheduled to be considered by the City Council on Friday.

The mayor and his appointees were first criticized for extravagant travel last month when most of the Harbor Commission planned to visit San Francisco and Honolulu. That trip was pared back after Tuttle’s criticism.