Bradbury Cruising to a 6th Term

It was the kind of blow that could have felled an ordinary politician: News that he was receiving federal rent subsidies to house his mother at his Ojai ranch.

But eight months after that public relations embarrassment, Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury is cruising to an unprecedented sixth straight term--with no competition in sight.

The tough-talking cowboy lawman--widely considered the county’s most powerful elected leader--will automatically retain his seat in June, since no one had filed to run against him by last week’s deadline. It is the fifth consecutive time Bradbury has gone unchallenged.

First elected in 1978, Bradbury is second by just a few months to Art Danner of Santa Cruz County as the district attorney with the most consecutive years of service in California.

And to hear him tell it, the John Wayne aficionado will not be riding off into the sunset any time soon, despite prior statements that he planned to be retired and raising quarter horses in his native Northern California about now. Indeed, this will not even be his final term, he said.

“I am young. I have lots of energy. I still have a lot of things I want to accomplish,” Bradbury, 55, said in a recent interview. “There is still a lot to be done.”

Nevertheless, the firestorm of criticism that followed last year’s Times investigation left the usually gregarious Bradbury feeling unfairly burned, and he has, for whatever reason, restricted his availability to the press.

Some close friends believe Bradbury’s current media stance--he does not grant as many interviews as he once did, and he makes reporters fax him lists of questions on occasion--is directly related to the sting he felt from that rare negative coverage. They predict it will eventually soften.

“He had that issue last year, and it was very personal for him,” said Glen Reiser, Bradbury’s personal attorney. “It’s one thing to attack someone professionally. It’s another thing to attack his mother.”

But Bradbury insists his move to step back from the media spotlight was not prompted by bad press. It has been a two-year process, and has more to do with a refocusing of priorities after he and his wife Heidi adopted their 21-month-old son, Mike Jr., than anything else, he said.

“I will still try to deal with them [the media] on the tough issues where we are getting thumped,” Bradbury said. “I feel that is my responsibility. But I think you will find it unusual when I will give any lengthy interviews, for example like this, in the future and give any type of glimpse into my personal life.”

Not that last year’s controversy meant a hill of beans to Bradbury’s political career.

In August, The Times revealed that Bradbury, who earns more than $130,000 a year, was accepting the $639 monthly rent subsidies to house his mother Marie at his Hang ‘Em High Ranch.

Bradbury said he was accepting the federal money so his mother could maintain her pride and feel she was contributing to the family. He pledged to give the same amount each month to local charities that provide affordable housing.

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Notified about the subsidies, the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development vowed to investigate, but has yet to follow through on that promise.

Some of Bradbury’s critics at the time are quick to throw their weight behind him now.

Other than the subsidy flap, they believe his law enforcement record and personal history are beyond reproach.

“Of course I support him,” said Oxnard Housing Authority Director Sal Gonzalez, who had complained subsidies should only be used to benefit the truly needy. “He’s done a good job.”

“Oh yeah, I’m behind him,” said taxpayer advocate Jere Robings, who also questioned Bradbury’s judgment for taking the subsidies. “He’s been a good D.A., and that’s the bottom line. If that’s the worst this guy has done in his career, that’s not too bad.”

Even Bradbury’s longtime detractors--the few who are willing to criticize him on the record--concede it would be political suicide to take on the county’s most popular elected leader.

Bradbury’s well-chronicled “no plea-bargaining” policy and refusal to engage in widespread negotiations to reduce caseloads might generate criticism in county legal circles, for instance.

“He’s clogging the courts with rinky-dink cases,” one attorney said.

But the public eats it up.

Likewise, Bradbury’s insistence that even veteran prosecutors defer routine decisions on their cases to their superiors--”like I’m not a real lawyer or something,” as one attorney put it--may insult many of his employees.

The bottom line is, the district attorney’s office has not lost a highly publicized case in years. There is no O.J. Simpson case in his closet.

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“He’s unbeatable,” said George C. Eskin, a veteran defense attorney and former prosecutor who has long been critical of the way Bradbury runs the office. “The public loves him, and I think everybody understands that. I think someone would have to be nuts to run against Mike. A true masochist.”

Although Ventura County is perennially ranked as one of the safest urban areas in the west, Bradbury concedes all is not perfect in paradise, or inside the district attorney’s office.

The county’s juvenile justice system is “a shambles,” Bradbury said. He says the number of death penalty cases he prosecutes is increasing, exceeding his budget, and that domestic abuse continues to be a problem, thrusting the children of violent households into a criminal lifestyle.

Among his chief concerns: deputy prosecutors are underpaid compared with their counterparts around the state, and county lawyers who handle civil litigation, a disparity he cites as “one of my failings.”

“Full onslaught,” Bradbury said when asked how he planned to secure higher salaries for his prosecutors. “Full-court press to get the [Board of Supervisors] to do the right thing, and that is to pay them what they are worth. The first thing would be to pay them at a parity with the county counsel’s office.”

Such an approach may be needed fast. While Bradbury has a reputation within county government for securing more than his share of available funding, some current and former prosecutors contend he has been oddly lacking in his efforts to increase his staff members’ pay.

They cite morale problems in the district attorney’s office, mainly due to money. Several talented veterans have left for greener pastures, and those who remain often feel their dedication is taken for granted.

Kevin DeNoce, a former prosecutors’ union president, spent nine years in the local D.A.’s office before leaving to become a criminal defense lawyer. He never would have left if the money had been better, he said.

“That’s why I’m out here, because Ventura County deputy D.A.s are the lowest paid in the state,” DeNoce said. “What always bothered me about it is, I could understand if we were living in a liberal county, but this is a law-and-order community, and the Board of Supervisors is paying these people a pittance.”

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DeNoce, however, downplayed talk of poor morale, saying grousing over salary issues never got in the way of the work.

“People in that office are extremely dedicated and devoted to their jobs,” he said. “They do a good job of keeping their displeasure over their pay from affecting their [performance]. . . . I hate to say it, but I think the Board of Supervisors knows they have a dedicated group over there and they are taking advantage of that.”

Supervisor John Flynn said Bradbury has a point. The county’s deputy prosecutors are not paid as much as their counterparts, and “it has become a a problem” that needs to be addressed, he said.

Public Defender Kenneth I. Clayman, meanwhile, said one need only look to his attorneys to find truly underpaid employees, even if that is the norm for the job. He believes Bradbury has been tremendously successful in boosting his office’s finances, considering the lean county budgets of recent years--and commends him for doing so without undercutting the public defender’s office.

“In some counties, the D.A. and the sheriff campaign hard to exclude the public defender from funding, and Mike has never done that here,” Clayman said. “He respects the role of the public defender, and has always been extremely professional in his dealings with me.”

Bradbury is quick to defer much of the praise for the county’s safe reputation to the Sheriff’s Department and city police departments. But the true credit, he says, should go to county residents for refusing to tolerate crime in their backyards.

Because he is experiencing fatherhood for a second time--he has two grown daughters from his first marriage--Bradbury said his outlook on career and life has changed. He feels reinvigorated, and more in touch than ever with the family issues that are close to the heart of many county residents.

“It is absolutely the greatest experience that I have ever had,” Bradbury said. “I am so blessed to be doing this because I resisted it. I thought the last thing in the world I wanted to do was raise children at this age. And to come home at night and see that little face in the window--someone so excited to see me--and hear him yelling ‘Daddy’ means everything in the world to me.

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“It has renewed my commitment to making this a safe community,” he added. “There are a lot of people out there that have little Michaels that they want safe, and it is very important to me.”

More practically, the realities of supporting another child have made Bradbury realize he is not as close to retirement as he had thought. He said he was shocked recently when he learned during a seminar at Pepperdine University how much it now costs to attend the university.

And there may be more children in his future, he said. But money is not the only reason he plans to stay on the job. Contrary to some critics’ contention, Bradbury said he was not passed over for higher office and judicial positions during his career, but let it be known that he intended to remain in Ventura County.

“I am not in a financial position--even if I wanted to--to retire,” he said. “I have more commitments now and we are hoping to have another child. . . . I have to keep bringing home the bacon for a while. But I love the job. Even if I hit the lottery tomorrow I wouldn’t change a thing.”

This summer Bradbury will be appointed president of the District Attorney’s Assn. for the second time--the first prosecutor to achieve that feat.