DA CRITICIZED FOR MINORITY HIRING; BRADBURY DEFENDS AFFIRMATIVE ACTION EFFORT, DISMISSES REPORT.

Byline: Don Holland Daily News Staff Writer

A review by the county Affirmative Action Commission says the District Attorney's Office is not making significant efforts to promote minorities to top positions.

The five-page survey by commission chairman Steve Bailey claims that the District Attorney's Office has not made Affirmative Action goals a high priority.

``It appears that the hiring-promoting of minority candidates is a byproduct rather than a goal of the recruitment process,'' Bailey said.

In a stinging response to the Board of Supervisors, District Attorney Michael Bradbury dismissed the report as flawed, inaccurate, misleading and motivated by ``agenda-driven attitudes.''

Although the assessment does not include statistical data provided by the District Attorney's Office, Bradbury said 14.3 percent of his prosecutors are minorities, compared with only 7.8 percent for all attorneys in the county, according to state employment data.

``I am proud of these figures and challenge the commission to find another large public or private law firm in Ventura County that has achieved this level of diversity. Indeed, the diversity of my attorney staff is very close to that found in the Los Angeles County legal community, where 14.5 percent of all lawyers are minorities,'' Bradbury said in his written response.

Bradbury, who is running unopposed for re-election, conceded there are not enough minorities in top management jobs. However, he noted that women make up 59 percent of his management staff, 39 percent of prosecutors and 69 percent of all office staff.

The shortage of minority managers, he said, is not due to bias but to the years of experience required of managers and the difficulty in hiring and retaining minority attorneys. Part of the problem is that prosecutors are paid significantly less than private practice attorneys.

The county's five-year affirmative action plan will expire in June unless the Board of Supervisors extends it. In a letter to the board, Bailey asked the board to extend the plan for one year while officials sort out the implications of Prop. 209, the voter-approved initiative that does away with race-based preferences.

The county's current affirmative action plan, Bailey said, appears to conform with the proposition.

The commission report recommends that the District Attorney's Office broaden its recruitment efforts to attract more minority applicants, recruit interns from minority law schools and turn recruitment duties over to the county Human Resources Department.

The District Attorney's Office should also increase training on diversity issues and hold managers responsible for meeting affirmative action goals in their annual performance reviews, the report said.