Bernardi in Tough Fight as Pace Quickens in Council Race

Los Angeles City Councilman Ernani Bernardi and some of his opponents engaged in a flurry of pre-election campaigning Friday in the northeast San Fernando Valley’s 7th District.

Bernardi is involved in a tough race because he is in a largely new district and faces seven opponents, the most in his 28 years on the council. He must get more than 50% of the vote in Tuesday’s election to avoid a June runoff against the second-place finisher.

Bernardi journeyed to crime-plagued Blythe Street in Panorama City to announce that he would provide $50,000 from his office budget for an undercover police operation there and in other drug-trafficking areas in the district.

One of his challengers, Jules S. Bagneris III, criticized Bernardi in the afternoon for opening a combined Pacoima field office and enterprise zone headquarters just days before the election. (An enterprise zone is a depressed area designated for financial help from the government.)

“The enterprise zone needs to get this kind of exposure. I’m happy about that,” Bagneris said. “But I just question his sincerity.”

Tovar Claims Support

Another challenger, Irene Tovar, brought together about two dozen Latino community leaders in Sun Valley “to demonstrate that there is solid support for me” from the Latino community.

Tovar, a former head of the Hispanic Caucus of the state Democratic Party, said she called the leaders together to respond to claims that the Latino community is divided in the race.

Meanwhile, at the urging of Al Dib, another candidate, John R. Maxon, president of the Arleta Chamber of Commerce, called a news conference to charge that Bernardi used his name on a mailer without his permission.

Maxon said he told Bernardi’s staff that he would remain neutral because he did not want to choose between the councilman and Dib, a former chamber president. Bernardi contended that Maxon had given permission for his name to be used.

At Bernardi’s news conference, the councilman insisted that his announcement to provide funds for the anti-drug operation just before the election was not a campaign ploy. This is the time of year when city budget analysts project how much council members may have left in their $641,978-a-year office budgets, he said.

Pays Police Overtime

The $50,000 will fund 1,600 overtime hours for a program in which undercover officers buy drugs, then arrest the sellers and any other buyers present.

At Bagneris’ news conference, the candidate said that if anyone deserves to reap the political benefits of the Pacoima enterprise zone’s progress, it is he, state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Van Nuys) and the late Councilman Howard Finn, who represented the area before Bernardi.

The enterprise zone, one of 16 depressed areas that the state designated for tax breaks and low-interest loans in 1986, has brought an estimated 1,200 jobs to Pacoima. Bagneris, who is an investment consultant and a minister, coordinated the zone’s inception as a Senate fellow and later as a committee consultant to Robbins.

“People are trying to take credit for something that they did not have a part in,” Bagneris said. “There’s no relationship between Mr. Bernardi and the Pacoima enterprise zone happening.”

Bernardi, however, said he has never claimed that he “originated the enterprise zone.” Instead, he said, the city’s Community Development Department suggested that they share an office. The enterprise office, until Friday, was in a building several blocks farther north on Van Nuys Boulevard.

‘It’s Working Fine’

“All we’re doing is working together, and it’s working fine,” Bernardi said.

Although Bagneris lauded the enterprise zone’s success, he criticized the city’s lack of enthusiasm for the project. He said community members have told him that because the enterprise zone office has not been staffed full time, they have had trouble getting information about moving businesses into the zone and about securing jobs there.

“What you have is basically a person assigned to it part time, and a lot of it is show and window-dressing,” he said. “A whole lot more could be done.”

Bagneris also questioned the wisdom of Bernardi accepting nearly half his campaign contributions from development-related sources and of candidate Lyle Hall taking a quarter of his contributions from labor unions. He said the two would be “beholden” to those special interests as councilmen.

But Bernardi said he receives far less from developers than other council members and always votes the way he would if “I were not a politician, but just a homeowner.”

Hall, meanwhile, sent out another mailer Friday--his eighth--this one attacking Bernardi on a number of issues, including driving a city car with a phone inside and hiring the director of the Los Angeles County Boards of Realtors to run his campaign, while he “tells apartment renters that he is a strong supporter of rent control.”

Bernardi said the mailer is full of distortions and lies. Bernardi said Lynn Wessell, who is with the Boards of Realtors, is a political consultant and an old friend who is giving him free advice.

Bernardi, who has been a strong rent-control advocate, said associations of apartment owners have opposed rent control, not the Boards of Realtors, which concerns itself with sales of real estate.