Deukmejian Toxics Bid a ‘Joke’--Bradley

DAVIS, Calif. — Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley said Saturday that Republican Gov. George Deukmejian told “the biggest joke of the century” when he asked the mayor to help him win legislative approval of a $150-million toxic-cleanup bond issue.

Bradley made the charge in a question-and-answer period at the Davis City Hall during a Northern California campaign trip designed to convey a message that he is a stronger and more decisive leader than his opponent in the November election.

The forum was the first of a planned series of “Town Hall” sessions in which supporters ask him questions.

“You ought to feel,” he said, that a governor can be “really reachable,” but, he added, Deukmejian has “literally isolated himself from the people, the press and the Legislature during his first three years in office.” In response to a question, he strongly criticized Deukmejian on the bond measure request.

On Thursday, Deukmejian wrote Bradley asking him to persuade the Democratic-controlled Assembly to support the proposed toxic-cleanup package.

The “if-you-truly-care” letter appeared to be an attempt by the governor to hit back on the toxics issue. The heart of Bradley’s gubernatorial drive is his criticism of Deukmejian for what the mayor says is the governor’s failure to clean up industrial pollution. Bradley is also backing Proposition 65 on the Nov. 4 ballot, a tough toxic-control measure on which Deukmejian has not yet taken a stand.

“If he really wants help he ought to turn to the Republican legislators,” Bradley said Saturday. “It’s not Tom Bradley he ought to turn to. That’s the biggest joke of the century. . . . He ought to come clean and give a boost to the Republicans to turn loose their support for the other bond issues.”

This was a reference to the fact that the Democrats won’t vote in sufficient numbers for the toxic-control package because of Republican opposition to Democratic-sponsored bond issues.

As he often does in Northern California, Bradley encountered tough environmental questions.

One proved particularly difficult. University of California faculty member Hap Dunning recalled to Bradley that the mayor had opposed a tough water conservation measure on the November, 1982, ballot that would have strengthened the state role in water conservation and limited the construction of the controversial New Melones Dam on the Stanislaus River.

Clearly unable to remember the issue, Bradley asked Dunning “to identify exactly what you have in mind.”

After Dunning said the measure was known as Proposition 13, Bradley said: “Well, let me just say I don’t remember that. I will not be able to give you that part of the answer.”

But he went on to say that his own proposal for state water use--encouraging more conservation in Southern California--would do much to save water.