Measure of a Mayor

While orange groves were being uprooted to make way for suburbia, and new six-lane freeways reached out to ease the swollen traffic arteries, one of the few unchanging Los Angeles landmarks over the past 14 years has been its mayor, Fletcher

Bowron. A onetime newspaper reporter and superior court judge, Bowron swept into office in 1938 as a reform candidate, soon established good, grey government in the City of the Angels, and was re-elected three times on the strength of it.

But as the city changed, so did its political habits. Expansion spawned some 65 little communities within the city, each more interested in its neighborhood problems than in the honest but dull processes of the City Hall. Economic philosophy changed too. In 1949, Bowron and the City Council were cheered as they contracted for federal money to build $110 million worth of low-cost public housing. Then Los Angeles seemed to lose interest in public housing.

Strong real-estate pressure groups tried to get Bowron to reverse his stand on the housing contracts. No great public-housing enthusiast, Republican Bowron stubbornly refused, because he believed in the sanctity of contract. (He was subsequently upheld by the state supreme court.) "When I became mayor," Bowron said recently, "it was a measure of a mayor's worth to get federal money. So I got it, and what happens? I'm a socialist villain!"

Bowron's plight made this election year an open season. Four candidates decided to campaign against him. One of them, an undistinguished Congressman named Norris Poulson, 57, drew the backing of Los Angeles' business community and the rich, powerful Los Angeles Times. Poulson campaigned hard; Bowron spent much of his TV time on such municipal problems as the garbage-collection budget.

Last week, in a heavy turnout, Norris Poulson polled more votes (44%) than any of the other candidates, including Bowron (35%). Betting was heavy that changing Los Angeles would change mayors in the runoff next month, unless Fletcher Bowron, now 65, changes his tactics first.

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