IN RETROSPECT 1988 : The Political Year: Mayoral Combat and Other Struggles

A purloined political memo, an early start to Los Angeles’ 1989 mayoral race and continued struggles over growth and pollution were the eye-catching developments in the Southland’s political and government life in 1988.

The memo became known as “the BAD memo,” not because it was poorly written, but in honor of the authors, Michael Berman and Carl D’Agostino, who call their political consulting firm BAD Campaigns. Actually, it was so well written that Harpers magazine printed excerpts. The message, however, made people mad.

In their bluntly cynical style, the consultants advised their political ally, Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, how to beat Mayor Tom Bradley in the 1989 mayoral election: They wrote that the councilman has “50 IQ points on (Bradley)” but will not win unless he stands firm against a proliferation of shopping centers and hotels, campaigns “with a smile on your face and a con in your eye” and increases efforts to tap fellow Jews for contributions so that “the Yaroslavsky campaign becomes the United Jewish appeal.”

Almost Daily Combat

The memo, taken without permission from the Yaroslavsky campaign and given to The Times in August, helped start the Bradley-Yaroslavsky race long before the nation elected its new President. By Christmas, the two were in almost daily combat.

Having a more permanent impact were the actions Los Angeles took to improve an increasingly overloaded sewer system. Voters in November approved a $1.5-billion bond issue to modernize, repair and replace thousands of miles of old sewage lines. Some are more than 100 years old.

There were other events: Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, backed strongly by developers, easily won a third term over former Supervisor Baxter Ward, who was supported by slow-growth advocates, in an election that demonstrated some of the political limits of the slow-growth movement. But advocates of growth limits continued to have political power with the Los Angeles City Council approving growth-control plans for Hollywood and Westwood Village.

Occidental Petroleum Corp.’s proposal to drill for oil in the Pacific Palisades was defeated by the voters; San Fernando Valley neighborhood groups delayed plans for a light rail line; a highly critical report by a coalition of advocates for more low-income housing seemed to bring to a head criticism that Los Angeles’ powerful Community Redevelopment Agency was more interested in downtown high-rises than housing for the poor. At year’s end, the CRA was fighting to rebut the charges, and the housing issue was shaping up to be a major one in 1989.

But in the long run, two other events of the past year, both the result of tedious and often arcane legal work, may prove to be far more important.

On the surface, they had little in common.

One dealt with water. The Imperial Irrigation District, which supplies water from the Colorado River to large ranches east of San Diego, agreed to sell a substantial amount of its surplus water to the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which takes care of the water needs of a huge, expanding urbanized area from Ventura County to the Mexican border and from the beach to Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Voting Rights

The other dealt with voting rights. The U.S. Justice Department filed suit in federal court to force the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, now consisting of five Anglos, to redraw its districts to help a Latino get elected.

But despite the surface difference, the events had something in common. They were both deeply interwined with the social, political and economic history of the Southland, both milestones on the region’s road from a simple land of mountains, deserts and Spanish ranchos to today’s cities struggling to meet the challenges of economic growth and ethnic population change.

On the water issue, farm owners and city dwellers have fought for decades over sharing supplies from Southern California’s distant sources, the Sierra Nevada, the far Northern California rivers and the Colorado River. Agriculture, historically California’s No. 1 industry, has had the lion’s share and has been reluctant to give it up. Intense battles have been fought in the Legislature, the courts and in government conference rooms over the issue.

Major Sign of Change

When the state ordered the farmers in the Imperial Valley to end wasteful water habits left over from an earlier era, they decided to turn excess water over to the MWD if the MWD would build conservation facilities. It was a major sign of the change in the Southland from agricultural to urban and an indication that the suburbs, in the future, will be taking a bigger share of limited water supplies to support their growth.

On reapportionment, in filing suit against Los Angeles County to force realignment of supervisorial districts, the U.S. Justice Department touched another part of history, the long political disenfranchising of Latinos in a land they once ruled. Charging that the current lines of supervisorial districts prevented a Latino winning in a county with a large Latino population, the Justice Department demanded a change. The controversy is expected to continue through 1989 and into the years ahead.

It was another step in the Latino quest for political power, a movement that began growing after World War II. It received great impetus from the 1960s and ‘70s organizing efforts of Cesar Chavez, the farm worker union leader, and the 1968 presidential campaign of a Latino favorite, the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. The drive for power has intensified even more with Latino population growth of recent years.

There was a reminder of that history in 1988’s news. Thin, haggard and sick from drinking only water for 30 days, Chavez ended a fast to protest the use of agricultural pesticides. At his side was the senator’s widow, Ethel Kennedy, and three of her children.