Bernardi Broke Pledge on Black Aide, Pastors Charge : Council: The ministers group says he hired a black, but as a field representative instead of a deputy.

A meeting between Councilman Ernani Bernardi and members of a San Fernando Valley ministers group Monday ended with a walkout by the ministers who said they were insulted by Bernardi and his supporters during a discussion on the councilman’s hiring of a black deputy.

Supporters of Bernardi’s choice for a black field representative clashed with the black ministers, who accused Bernardi of breaking a pledge to select a deputy based on their recommendations.

“We did not go there for a confrontation,” said the Rev. James V. Lyles, president of the Ministers’ Fellowship of the Greater San Fernando Valley. “We were there to discuss the hiring of a black deputy and that issue is still on the agenda.”

Bernardi appeared angry over the outcome of the meeting.

“I’m not going to try to explain what happened here,” he said. “This was really a community meeting with solid support for the candidate.”

Last week, the ministers expressed outrage over Bernardi’s hiring of Richard Packard, who heads the Valley chapter of the Black Americans Political Assn.

Members of the Ministers’ Fellowship say that Bernardi promised to hire a black deputy based on recommendations made by the fellowship, in exchange for their support during the last council election.

The ministers say their active support and campaigning helped push Bernardi over the top during the runoff election. “We did what we were asked to do, now we’re asking him to do what he said he would do,” Lyles said.

Bernardi has denied that any such agreement was ever made.

In addition to their anger over being left out of the selection process, the ministers said Bernardi hired Packard as a field representative, not a deputy--a higher ranking job--as they asked.

“He appointed Mr. Richard Packard as field representative, and that’s a long way from being a deputy. . . . We characterize that as a field hand,” Lyles said.

Packard said he was hired as a “field deputy.”

Monday’s meeting at the councilman’s Sylmar office ended when Bernardi supporters became verbally abusive, Lyles said. “They simply lost control . . . for our own dignity we just had to vacate the premises because we had been disrespected and our cause totally disregarded,” he said.

Others at the meeting supported Packard, including Jose DeSosa, president of the San Fernando Valley chapter of the NAACP.

Marie Harris, who heads the Pacoima Property Owners Assn., said Packard has the support of many in the community and many longtime residents showed up to express support. “He was raised in Pacoima and he’s an intelligent young man,” she said of Packard. “He’s very respectable.

Harris said she was “very surprised and I’m really appalled,” at the actions of the ministers.

Packard, a long-time resident of Pacoima and former director of the Pacoima Community Youth Culture Center, said Monday’s meeting demonstrated that he has a “very good rapport” with various segments of the community.

“There was full representation of the black community,” Packard said. “They were behind me 100%. They made that known to the councilman and to the leadership of the Ministers’ Fellowship.”

Packard said he has had amicable relations with the members of the ministers group in the past, and expressed bewilderment over their position.

“It’s sort of puzzling,” he said. “From the onset, I was supportive of them in their determination to see that the councilman got a black deputy, and they were more than willing to have me on board in that regard. And once I got the position, they seemed to do a 180-degree turn.

“I don’t know what the problem is.”

But members of the fellowship maintain that the problem is not Packard but what they say is Bernardi’s failure to live up to his agreement to hire a staff deputy based on recommendations made by the group. Fred Taylor, also a member of the ministers group and president of Focus ‘90, said the community’s drug problem shows the need for a black deputy, not just a field representative.

“The reason we are there pushing this issue is because of the problems we are having in the community,” he said.

Lyles said the ministers would work with Packard but will continue to push for a black deputy.

They will discuss the possibility of initiating a recall drive against Bernardi at a town hall meeting next week, they said.