Hall Criticizes Bernardi for ‘Goons’ Comment

City Council candidate Lyle Hall, flanked by top Los Angeles union leaders, Friday denounced incumbent Councilman Ernani Bernardi for calling labor officials “goons” and demanded a public apology. Bernardi refused.

Bernardi said his comments, made during a Wednesday night face-off with Hall before 300 members of east San Fernando Valley churches, “were not intended to include the rank and file. This involved Lyle Hall and his board of directors” of the firefighters union.

Hall, who is on leave from his job as a Los Angeles Fire Department captain, is a former president of the firefighters union. He said his union supporters “are shocked and outraged at Bernardi’s slur.” Hall described “goon” as a derogatory term for union organizers.

Bernardi made the comment after he was asked by Father Jim Dukowski of Mary Immaculate Church whether he would support an increase in the Los Angeles Police Department from about 7,600 to 10,000 officers by 1993, with an increase of 514 this year.

Bernardi said he supported the increases. But he also warned that the city may not be able to come up with the money for more officers because of a recent court decision that could force the city to increase fire and police pension benefits by $43 million a year. He blamed Hall because Hall was one of the union officials who brought the suit.

‘I Challenge Hall’

“I challenge Mr. Hall to get his goons to call that lawsuit off, to get the officers we need back on the streets,” Bernardi yelled.

The court ruling upheld police and firefighter unions, which sought to overturn a 1982 voter-approved measure that capped annual cost-of-living increases in pension benefits for firefighters and police. Hall served as president of United Firefighters from 1976 to 1984.

Hall declined to respond to Bernardi’s challenge during or after the program, but several firefighters and their wives in the audience chastised the councilman for his comment. Bernardi said at the time: “I told you, I apologize for that.”

The two candidates are vying in a June 6 runoff for the council seat representing the northeast Valley.

At Friday’s news conference, Hall said he was “really disappointed” that the campaign has “degenerated to name-calling.”

George Aliano, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, said union leaders and rank-and-file members are uniformly offended by Bernardi’s comment.

Firefighters union president Don Forrest sarcastically said: “It was the goons who put out the fire at the Central Library. It was the goons who risked their lives at the First Interstate Bank fire.”

Hall’s stand was supported by City Controller Rick Tuttle; William Robertson, executive secretary of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, and Robert Duncan, executive director of the Engineers and Architects Assn.

After the City Hall news conference, Bernardi pointed out that Hall released erroneous information that stated the councilman “authored” the 1982 pension measure, called Charter Amendment H, which the unions’ lawsuit overturned. “That’s an outright lie,” Bernardi said, noting: “I campaigned against that.”

However, in 1981 Bernardi did support a similar pension reduction measure for police and fire employees, which drew the wrath of the unions.