Bernson Attacks Bradley’s Opinion of Mosque Design : Architecture: The councilman says that the question of minarets and domes was not raised during permit review.

Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson on Tuesday accused Mayor Tom Bradley of ill-informed meddling in his San Fernando Valley district because the mayor condemned as “outrageous” a council requirement that a Granada Hills mosque have Spanish-style architecture.

“Bradley doesn’t know what’s going on in my district,” Bernson said. “He’s sticking his nose in my district from Germany . . . where he’s goofing off on taxpayer money.”

Bradley criticized the council’s mosque decision as he traveled Monday in West Germany. Bradley is in Western Europe, accompanied by nine city officials, on a 19-day, city-funded mission to drum up business for Los Angeles International Airport that is expected to cost nearly $200,000.

“What the mayor did is unforgiveable,” said Bernson, who threatened unspecified retaliation against Bradley. “He’s just trying to divert attention from his own questionable trip,” he said, referring to criticism of the trip by other council members as unneeded and extravagant.

Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani responded by calling Bernson’s accusations an irrelevant tirade.

Last week, the council approved a conditional use permit allowing construction of a $1.8-million mosque on a 2.5-acre site in a residentially zoned area of Granada Hills near Rinaldi Street and Encino Avenue.

Official drawings, adopted by the council as part of the permit, depict Spanish-style architecture with a red tile roof.

The head of the Muslim congregation later said the members would have preferred a mosque that looked more Middle Eastern, with a dome and minaret.

“The question of having minarets and domes never, ever was mentioned during our review of this,” Bernson said.

The Spanish design was not really imposed by the council, Bernson said. Rather, it was the style submitted by the congregation itself during the City Hall approval process. To change the style now would require the congregation to reopen its case at City Hall and seek to modify the conditions, a potentially lengthy process.

Mohammed Mohuiddin, president of the Islamic Center of Northridge, the congregation seeking the mosque, said his group had been advised by its lobbyist, Robert Wilkinson, a former councilman and Bernson’s immediate predecessor, that a Bernson-picked citizens advisory group wanted their building to have Spanish architecture.

Wilkinson has said he advised the Muslims not to seek a different style for the Granada Hills mosque because a Northridge community group had come “unglued” and protested the group’s earlier attempt to build a mosque in the traditional Middle Eastern style near Cal State Northridge.

Bradley, after reading newspaper accounts that Mohuiddin was unhappy with the architectural limits, said that it was a violation of religious freedom to interfere with the design of houses of worship.

Fabiani said it was immaterial whether the Muslims submitted plans for a Spanish-style mosque because they thought that was required to win city approval or whether the design was imposed directly on them by city officials.

“Either way, their freedom of religious expression was impinged upon,” Fabiani said.