For the Candidates, (Most) Verdicts Are In : Bernardi Is Only Council Member Facing a Runoff

Portrayed as too old and too set in his ways to represent the ethnically changing northeast San Fernando Valley, Ernani Bernardi, the 77-year-old dean of the Los Angeles City Council, faces a difficult runoff against a political newcomer after Tuesday’s municipal primary election.

Bernardi was the only one of eight council members up for reelection who did not win outright, drawing 42% of the vote. Instead, he faces a June 6 confrontation with the closest of his seven rivals, Lyle Hall, a 49-year-old former president of the city firefighters’ union who had strong labor support.

The 28-year council veteran blamed his showing in Tuesday’s election on “a very slick, hard-hitting campaign against me which involved a torrent of last-minute mailings full of distortions,” a low voter turnout and a large field of candidates. In addition, he was running in a largely new 7th District, which was redrawn by the council in 1986.

Bernardi predicted that he will make a strong comeback in the runoff. “It will be an entirely different campaign,” he said at a packed news conference in his City Hall office. “It will be one against one instead of one against seven.”

Hall, a fire captain who received the department’s Medal of Valor, said the election results simply showed voters are ready for a change.

Elsewhere in the city, council incumbents Marvin Braude, Joan Milke Flores, Gilbert W. Lindsay, Gloria Molina, Joy Picus, Michael Woo and Zev Yaroslavsky were reelected to four-year terms, as were City Atty. James K. Hahn and Controller Rick Tuttle.

In the council’s 7th District, political analysts said Bernardi was hurt by the low voter turnout--about 23% of the city’s registered voters went to the polls--and the large field. The field included one candidate, Irene Tovar, who had strong roots to the district’s fast-growing Latino community, and another, Al Dib, the only Republican in the nonpartisan race who aggressively courted the GOP vote.

“We just had too many candidates and too few votes,” Bernardi’s political consultant, Lynn Wessell said, adding that Bernardi supporters stayed away from the polls, believing that their candidate would easily win. “Some of our people just didn’t think they needed to vote.”

But Arnold Steinberg, a political consultant not involved in the campaign, said Hall’s attack on Bernardi’s age and council absenteeism “struck a responsive chord” among voters.

“Whenever someone doesn’t do well, it’s easy to blame low turnout,” Steinberg said, adding he doubted that voter apathy was the sole factor behind Bernardi’s poor showing.

“The change in district had to make a big difference,” said Councilwoman Picus, another representative from the San Fernando Valley.

In the 1986 council redistricting, Bernardi lost many of the Anglo, working-class neighborhoods in Van Nuys that provided the core of his support. The new district is still heavily blue collar and middle class, but it is nearly 50% Latino.

Picus said Bernardi, who has never been in a runoff since he was first elected in 1961, did not campaign hard until the closing days of the campaign.

“I think he has a very good chance of winning . . . but needs an aggressive campaign,” she said. “He’s never done that before. We’re all telling him to do it. . . . Ernie didn’t wage a campaign until the very end.” The big field, she said, made it difficult because each one could pick off a little piece of his constituency.

History has not been kind to incumbents forced into runoff elections. Of the three City Council members forced into runoffs in the last 12 years, only Councilwoman Peggy Stevenson survived a 1981 battle against Mike Woo, but she was defeated by Woo four years later.

Scrappy Fighter

Bernardi, who has a reputation as a scrappy fighter of the city bureaucracy, said he was ready to fight for his seat.

“It will be a contest between someone who is independent and someone who is beholden to the special interests,” he said, alluding to Hall’s support from the city labor unions.

Hall’s campaign manager, Harvey Englander, promised more of the same hard-hitting tactics. He said future mailings will continue emphasizing Hall’s “youth and vigor” and that Bernardi’s reputation as the council’s maverick has hurt the district.

On Tuesday night, Englander, watching a televised news report of an energetic Hall followed by a tired Bernardi sitting behind a smoked-glass cubicle at his campaign headquarters refusing to comment on the race, remarked: “Ernani Bernardi looked beaten in that photograph we saw on television tonight. It’ll be easy to raise funds now.”

At his press conference, Bernardi said: “If my math serves me correctly, I need to get only one out of every four votes cast for one of my opponents (other than Hall) in order to gain the margin necessary for victory. The odds are now in my favor.”

As for his age and health, he said, “I’m just as aggressive as I have ever been.”

Refused to Answer Questions

Bernardi contended that Hall distorted his attendance record. But 15 minutes into his press conference, Bernardi refused to answer any more questions and loudly hummed “Stars and Stripes Forever.”

Both runoff contenders immediately began courting the other candidates in an effort to win their endorsements.

In other council races, Picus narrowly defeated five challengers to win reelection in the West San Fernando Valley’s 3rd District. She attributed her close race to the low turnout.

“People who are angry vote,” she said. “If they’re not voting, then they’re pretty satisfied with the status quo” and with “the way the city is being run.”

Yaroslavsky easily won reelection in the 5th District, which extends from the Westside to the Valley. His toughest foe, environmental activist Laura M. Lake, had tried to weaken Yaroslavsky by blaming him for the district’s considerable development woes. But Lake garnered only 33% of the vote. She blamed her loss on Yaroslavsky’s high name recognition and fund-raising skills.

In the 13th District, Woo easily turned back challenges from four candidates, each of whom had hoped to bring together a potpourri of disaffected voters unhappy with Woo over everything from Hollywood redevelopment to unreturned constituent phone calls.

Woo, who outspent his leading challenger by more than 10 to 1, described his showing as a “strong mandate.” He attributed his success to a “textbook campaign,” which identified likely voters and relied on extensive precinct walking, telephone banks, campaign coffees and targeted mailings in his Silver Lake-to-Studio City district.

Hollywood Hills attorney Berndt Lohr-Schmidt, Woo’s No. 1 challenger who finished with a disappointing 16% of the vote, said Woo’s victory resulted more from low voter turnout than widespread support.

Flores, whose 15th District extends from Watts to San Pedro, outpolled Wilmington activist Jo Ann Wysocki by a nearly 3-1 margin. Flores--who outspent Wysocki 33 to 1--described the victory as the equivalent of “getting an A on your report card.”

Times staff writers Stephanie Chavez, Alan Citron, Frederick M. Muir, Dean Murphy and James Quin contributed to this article.