Bernson Is Council’s Top Travel Spender : City Hall: He spent $120,622 in campaign funds on travel during the last three years--far more than any other council member.

In 1987, Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson, his wife and three daughters jetted overseas for a 17-day visit. In Israel, he toured a day-care center and a Red Sea kibbutz and met with the mayor of Tel Aviv. In Italy, he discussed earthquake preparedness with a former government official. In both countries, he stayed in luxury hotels.

The tab for the trip--more than $24,000--was paid through the councilman’s private treasury of political contributions.

Records show that Bernson has spent $120,622 in campaign funds on travel during the last three years--far more than anyone else on the 15-member City Council.

Bernson’s privately financed travel expenses were nearly three times as high as those of Mayor Tom Bradley, who spent $44,939, and exceeded those of Gov. George Deukmejian, who spent $72,260 during the same period.

Council members spent an annual average of $8,635 in privately raised funds and $2,427 in city funds on travel during the last three years, a Times survey found.

Like Bernson, a number of council members used private funds--from their reelection accounts, political action committees, officeholder accounts and “friends committees”--to travel extensively in the United States and abroad for a variety of conferences, tours and meetings.

Use of private political funds for travel is legal, providing it is related to government or political purposes. Pleasure trips are prohibited. But state officials acknowledge that the law is vague and difficult to enforce.

“Many statutes are enforced by public opinion, and I think this is one where that’s an important ingredient,” Asst. Atty. Gen. N. Eugene Hill said.

Between Jan. 1, 1987, and Dec. 31, 1989, Bernson and his wife traveled not only to Italy and Israel, but also to Paris, Hong Kong, London, Beijing and British Columbia, plus New Orleans, New York, Seattle, Boston, Carmel and Hilo, Hawaii.

Bernson said in a recent interview that his privately funded travel was not excessive and all his trips were proper. Much of his travel, he said, was to attend conferences related to his membership on the state Seismic Safety Commission and in the National League of Cities.

The San Fernando Valley councilman also said information acquired while traveling helps him “to do my job and to accomplish the things I’ve accomplished for the city.”

Bernson’s nearest rival, Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, used $93,883 in campaign funds for travel, according to reports required by the state.

During the last half of 1989, Flores--now a candidate for secretary of state--spent $7,500 on air and rail fare and an additional $13,000 on accommodations for her aides and herself, records show. She visited Montreal, London, Paris, Brussels, Moscow and Bordeaux, France, where she attended a world oceanology conference. She also toured Eastern Europe--including stops in Prague, Warsaw and Berlin--last December and January.

Flores spent nearly $9,000 for a midsummer staff retreat at the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix, Ariz. The councilwoman normally holds the retreat in the Los Angeles area, but aides said it was moved to Arizona because airlines and the hotel offered reduced off-season rates.

Flores said the travel is relevant to her duties as chairwoman of the council’s Commerce, Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which oversees operation of the Port of Los Angeles and the city’s airports.

In Paris, for example, she met with French railroad officials. In Montreal, she toured the control room for that city’s subway system.

From 1987 to 1989, Councilman Robert Farrell spent $76,214 in campaign funds on travel, visiting Atlanta, New York City, Washington and South Africa. Last July, Farrell went to Egypt for a week to help formalize a sister-city relationship between Los Angeles and Giza and to attend a political conference of black women.

Farrell said the trips “all helped me to better represent my constituency.”

In privately financed travel, Farrell was followed by council members Richard Alatorre with $32,754; Joel Wachs, $28,489; Gloria Molina, $9,255; Michael Woo, $8,139, and Zev Yaroslavsky, $8,639. Ernani Bernardi, Ruth Galanter and John Ferraro spent no campaign funds for travel. However, Ferraro, the council president, spent $32,083 in public funds on travel--roughly twice what the mayor spent.

Most of Alatorre’s trips were to U.S. cities and were related to National League of Cities conferences and posts the councilman has held with the Democratic National Committee, his staff said.

Alatorre traveled to Mexico in 1988 to meet with students and government officials in a university exchange program, said his chief deputy, Al Avila.

Wachs, an art collector and arts advocate, attributed most of his $28,489 in campaign-paid travel--including a dozen trips to New York City--to his interest in public art.

Last year Wachs made a one-week trip to Venice for a “livable cities” conference. In 1987, he toured museums in the Netherlands, France, Italy, Germany and Switzerland. Wachs said the purpose of the $6,000 tour was to seek exhibits for the privately run Museum of Contemporary Art.

“The arts are really critical to the city,” he said.

In recent years, Bernson’s campaign-financed travel has far outstripped that of the other council members.

A conservative Republican who has represented the northwestern San Fernando Valley since 1979, Bernson collects a council salary of $61,522 a year and owns a modest Granada Hills home.

But, using campaign funds, he has been able to fly first-class, stay in plush hotels and pick up large meal tabs for himself and others. From 1987 to 1989, records show, he spent at least $25,210 in political funds for hotel rooms and meals on the road. The expenses ranged from $3,203 for his family’s stay at the landmark King David Hotel in Jerusalem to $410 Bernson spent on meals and drinks for 10 political supporters at the Del Mar race track two years ago.

Bernson said much of his privately raised money has been spent on fact-finding missions involving land-use regulation and transportation matters.

“Personally . . . I’d rather not travel at all,” he said. “I mean, it gets to be a real pain, even at its best.”

Bernson’s private contributions have soared since 1987 when he became chairman of the council’s powerful Planning and Land Use Management Committee, which recommends development projects to the full council. Although contributions to Bernson averaged $135,500 a year from 1981 to 1985, they jumped to $457,000 in 1988 and $258,000 in 1989, campaign reports show. More than half of the donations came from development- and real estate-related interests.

Under a 1981 state law, such funds can be used for travel if the trips have a “reasonable relationship” to government, legislative or political business. Guidelines issued by the state attorney general in 1986 said the funds can be used for travel only if at least half the time abroad is spent on official or political matters.

Some of Bernson’s campaign-financed travels--such as a 1988 trip to attend the Republican National Convention in New Orleans--are well within the law.

But Bernson’s 1987 Hawaii trip appeared to violate state guidelines, state Asst. Atty. Gen. Hill said.

Bernson said he and his wife were in Hawaii for two days and three nights. His campaign funds paid at least $2,232 for the trip, including a $1,196 hotel bill.

The councilman--who has taken a lead role in seismic safety issues in Los Angeles--said he went to gather information on Hawaiian emergency-preparedness operations and to see how local officials coped with the then-erupting Kilauea volcano.

On his first day in Hawaii, Bernson said, he met for about an hour with Harry Kim, head of Hawaii County civil defense operations, to discuss disaster relief efforts.

Kim disputed that account, saying the meeting lasted about 20 minutes. “There was little in-depth discussion as far as our operations or his operations, or our problems or his problems,” said Kim, adding that Bernson appeared for the meeting in Bermuda shorts.

The next day, Bernson said, he took a helicopter flight over the volcano that lasted “the morning.” He acknowledged that there were no disaster officials with him on the flight, only tourists.

Bernson said he overflew the volcano in his capacity as a state seismic safety commissioner. He said he was gathering information on volcano-induced earth movement in connection with the Mammoth Lakes area, in which geologists say there may one day be volcanic activity.

However, the state Seismic Safety Commission has no jurisdiction over volcano-related issues, said L. Thomas Tobin, the panel’s executive director.

Asst. Atty. Gen. Hill, after a Times reporter related details of the Hawaii trip, said it appeared that the journey “probably would not meet” state guidelines on campaign-paid travel.

However, Hill said it is unlikely that the councilman could be charged with violating the state travel law, which Hill described as very broadly written and difficult to enforce. “It’s very difficult for us to say a trip doesn’t have a political or legislative purpose when an elected official says it does,” he said.

Moreover, Hill said, the law carried only a one-year statute of limitations and was replaced last Jan. 1 by a new law, which transfers its enforcement from the attorney general to the state Fair Political Practices Commission.

Since the law’s 1981 enactment, no elected official has been charged for not devoting enough time to business while on a trip financed by private political funds, Hill said. Violations are punishable by civil fines of up to two times the amount of campaign money improperly spent.

Bernson, his wife and at least six friends took a one-day bus tour from London to the village of Brockenhurst, about 60 miles away, during a four-day trip to England in 1988.

Although he acknowledged that he spoke to no government officials, Bernson said he visited historical monuments and small villages because England’s land-use patterns have possible applications in Porter Ranch, a massive residential development that has been proposed for his council district.

The Times described the trip and Bernson’s reasons for taking it to Mark Haarer, assistant director of Common Cause, a public-interest lobbying group that has criticized Bernson campaign fund-raising in the past.

Haarer said it appeared that Bernson had gone abroad to perform some government-related business that could have been carried out in the United States. “If I were a Hal Bernson campaign contributor,” he said, “I’d wonder why campaign funds were used to go to Europe to study small towns where there is an abundance of small-town examples in our own back yard.”

Bernson’s biggest recent year for travel was 1988, during which he spent $79,312 in campaign money. In 1987, he spent $36,053. Last year the figure dropped to $5,257, after local newspapers printed stories regarding some trips.

Bernson said one reason his campaign-paid travel tab is so high is that he rarely bills the city for his journeys.

“I don’t travel any more than any other member of the council; in fact, I probably travel less,” he said. “The difference is they charge theirs to the city. I could do that but I don’t feel comfortable doing that.”

City records show Bernson was the council’s fourth-heaviest spender of public funds for travel during 1987-89, billing the city $11,487.

Bernson sometimes uses campaign dollars to enhance amenities on trips where he bills the city for basic expenses, thereby avoiding the city’s more restrictive travel reimbursement rules. He has used campaign funds to bring along his wife, upgrade airline tickets and pay large meal bills.

On a 1988 trip to Beijing to attend an international earthquake conference, for example, Bernson billed the city $1,277 for air fare but flew on a first-class ticket that actually cost $3,307, city documents show. The difference was paid with campaign money, he said.

Bernson said he must travel first class on lengthy trips because his wife has a bad back and comfort is important on a long flight. He often stays in plush hotels because “I don’t have to stay in fleabags,” he said.

Times staff writer Dean Murphy contributed to this story.

POLITICIANS’ TRAVEL

Travel by Los Angeles mayor and city council members, 1987-89*

Privately raised funds** Paid by city Richard Alatorre $32,754 $1,341 Ernani Bernardi 0 $843 Hal Bernson $120,622 $11,487 Marvin Braude $230 $961 Robert Farrell $76,214 $16,682 John Ferraro 0 $32,083 Joan Milke Flores $93,883 $2,930 Ruth Galanter 0 $4,199 Nate Holden $6,055 $7,387 Gilbert Lindsay $3,215 $373 Gloria Molina $9,255 $3,418 Joy Picus $1,089 $14,182 Joel Wachs $28,489 $4,723 Michael Woo $8,139 $7,107 Zev Yaroslavsky $8,639 $1,503 Mayor Tom Bradley $44,939 $16,493

* Based on city records and campaign disclosure statements. Includes travel by aides.

** Includes reelection funds, political action committees, office-holder accounts and “friends” committees.