Los Angeles Will Not Forget Him : With a touch of class, Mayor Bradley announces he’s not running

With Mayor Tom Bradley’s announcement that he will not seek reelection, a political era is coming to an end in Los Angeles. As overused as that phrase is, it is appropriate: There is no way of overestimating the profound influence of Bradley during his nearly two decades as mayor.

There’s no doubt that for most of his almost 20 years in office, Los Angeles felt very comfortable with Tom Bradley, who was reelected term after term by substantial margins.

THE PROFILE: The tall, imposing figure cut by the mayor often seemed to be at odds with his quiet, diplomatic--critics said plodding--public persona.

He derived his power not from the office, which the City Charter intentionally devised as weak in comparison to the City Council. His power and influence came from the alliances he was able to forge--with business, with allies on the council, with community leaders.

The way Bradley exercised power and got things done, particularly during his first dozen or so years in office, was a textbook lesson in how-to-get-what-you-want-in-politics-while-looking-as-if-all-you-do- is-cut-ribbons.

As a former member of the City Council, Bradley understood that much of the formal power of the purse and policy was vested in the council. So he forged close political relationships with council members who could bring into the City Council proposals the mayor favored. The mayor didn’t mind sharing credit, or sometimes even staying in the background, as long as he got what he wanted--as he usually did.

THE QUESTIONS: The criticism came, especially after he had been in office many years, over whether those close to Bradley had inappropriately enriched themselves by using their political connections. And many Angelenos--Latino, Anglo, African-American and Asian-American--worried aloud that the mayor didn’t use a bully pulpit to actively fight crime, gangs and the general deterioration of the city.

THE CONTRIBUTION: Bradley worked well with the private sector, most notably in recent years in his appointment of Warren Christopher, prominent attorney and former U.S. deputy secretary of state, to head up the commission that investigated serious problems within the Los Angeles Police Department. And it was Bradley who tapped former Olympics czar Peter V. Ueberroth to oversee and energize the business community behind the Rebuild L.A. effort.

Some suggest that the style of low-key consensus that worked so well and so long for Bradley may now be out of step with a city increasingly divided by the politics of race and class. We can only hope that those who seek to replace him remember that much of what Bradley did to bring the city together, and how he did it, is worth emulating.