Bernardi Begins Drive to Bring Old 1st District Back to Valley

Los Angeles City Councilman Ernani Bernardi today will kick off a long-shot initiative drive to abolish existing council-district boundaries and institute a reapportionment plan that would assign Councilwoman Gloria Molina to represent the northeast San Fernando Valley.

Bernardi is scheduled to meet with supporters in Lake View Terrace to plan a strategy for gathering the 69,516 signatures required to qualify the initiative for the June, 1988, ballot.

The initiative seeks to repeal the redistricting approved by the council last September. That action eliminated the northeast Valley’s 1st District, represented by the late Councilman Howard Finn, and divided the territory between Bernardi and Councilman Joel Wachs. It created a new 1st District in a predominantly Latino area near downtown Los Angeles.

The redistricting, approved after Finn’s death in August, settled a federal lawsuit seeking increased Latino representation on the council. It also headed off a fight between two incumbents who would have been placed in the same district under a plan approved by the council before Finn’s death.

Many Valley residents were angry, however, because the redistricting assigned them council members they did not elect and who were unfamiliar with their areas.

Asks Return to Former Boundaries

The initiative calls for implementation of the plan approved by the council before Finn’s death, but then revoked. It would return the 1st District to the northeast Valley and, along with it, its newly elected representative, Molina.

“I’m sure she’ll be welcome out there,” Bernardi said Friday with unkind words for the council’s redistricting. “Isn’t that what they did to me? Is that what they did to Wachs? They sent us to a district where we weren’t elected.”

The proposed initiative would put Councilmen John Ferraro and Michael Woo in the same Hollywood-Wilshire district and make them likely opponents in an election.

Bernardi, who is leading the petition drive almost single-handedly, faces considerable legal and political obstacles.

The political reform group Common Cause, which supports a second initiative drive planned by Bernardi to take redistricting out of the council’s hands and assign the job to a citizens’ commission, declined to join the effort. Putting a set of lines on the ballot is “an impossible thing to ask voters to decipher,” said Walter Zelman, director of California Common Cause.

Second Initiative on Hold

Bernardi said he is holding off on the second initiative, which would create a reapportionment commission, until after the repeal effort so voters are not confused.

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, which joined in the Justice Department’s 1985 lawsuit, opposes the repeal effort. If it passes, the group will promptly bring suit to have it overturned, said Richard Fajardo, an attorney for the group. He contends that the effort would represent a setback for Latinos.

Bernardi said Latinos should support the repeal effort because it would create the possibility for the election of a third Latino to the 15-member council from the predominantly Latino district represented by Molina. Richard Alatorre and Molina are now the only Latinos on the council.

Alatorre, who was in charge of the council’s reapportionment, suggested that Bernardi has his own political interests at stake in pushing the repeal initiative. “Bernardi is concerned because he inherited the third-highest Hispanic district,” Alatorre said in a recent interview.

Bernardi was placed in a district where Latinos make up nearly 50% of the population. Latino political organizers hope to field a candidate, either against Bernardi in 1989 or when the 75-year-old councilman retires.

Must Win Majority Vote Citywide

If the initiative qualifies for the ballot, supporters must win approval of a majority of voters citywide. Opposition to the council redistricting was largely limited to the northeast Valley.

Bernardi has received support for the petition drive from some Valley activists. Finn’s widow, Anne, and Sylmar businessman Morris Wills are co-sponsors of the initiative. But no other elected officials have joined the effort.

Wachs, who is up for reelection April 14, has declined to become involved in the repeal drive.

“I can’t be put into the position of choosing between two districts that I now have a strong affinity for,” he said.

But Wachs said he plans to pour much of his campaign war chest into qualifying the Bernardi-Common Cause initiative to strip the council of its power to redistrict.

Bernardi’s meeting, which is open to the public, will take place from 1 to 5 p.m. at Lake View Terrace Recreation Center.