D.A. Investigates Bernhardt Mailers

A district attorney’s investigator is examining a wide variety of literature mailed by Councilwoman Linda Bernhardt’s 1989 campaign in an apparent attempt to determine how Bernhardt paid for the more than 20 direct-mail pieces sent to homes in the 5th Council District.

Bob Trettin, consultant to the committee attempting to recall Bernhardt from office, last month turned over the collection of campaign mailers to Carlos Rebelez, an investigator for Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller’s office, after Rebelez requested the material, Trettin said.

On Wednesday, Rebelez for the second time interviewed Glendale printer Ron Charles, who produced Bernhardt’s campaign mailers, to review the prices he charged the Bernhardt campaign, Charles said. A representative of the district attorney’s office also has contacted Bill Atkinson of Neyenesch Printers to discuss the costs of campaign mailers, Atkinson said Thursday.

Bernhardt’s former political consultant, Rick Taylor, said the district attorney’s probe into the mailers would reveal no illegal conduct and would prove only that Taylor secured competitive prices for Bernhardt.

“It will prove that Rick Taylor gets more bang for my buck,” Taylor said angrily. “And I view that as a compliment, not a crime.”

He also claimed that the investigation “is being guided by . . . paid political consultants for the campaign to recall Linda Bernhardt.”

Miller’s office would not comment on the interviews, but they appear to be an attempt to determine whether Bernhardt raised sufficient funds to send approximately 400,000 pieces of mail to District 5 residents considered most likely to vote in her 1989 victory over incumbent Councilman Ed Struiksma.

Jack Orr, who until this week also served as a paid political consultant for the Recall Bernhardt Committee, claimed in an interview that Bernhardt “couldn’t possibly” finance her barrage of campaign mailers “on the amount of money Linda Bernhardt was raising and could expect to raise in the campaign.” Orr has been interviewed by Rebelez.

Orr said in an interview that, if Bernhardt’s campaign and a vendor struck a deal to delay payments for campaign literature, “to me it constitutes an illegal loan.”

City Atty. John Witt said Thursday that an extension of credit to a council candidate would violate the city’s ban on political debts lasting more than 30 days. A spokeswoman for the state Fair Political Practices Commission said that she could not determine whether such an arrangement also would violate state election codes.

Taylor angrily denounced the expenditure of taxpayer dollars by the district attorney’s office to investigate charges leveled by Bernhardt’s political opponents.

“Do they have anything that didn’t come from an enemy of Linda Bernhardt’s?” Taylor asked. “It appears from their questioning that they don’t.”

Miller’s spokesman, Steve Casey, would not comment on the details of the review. But he said that, “in the course of an investigation, we check out information from a wide variety of sources. And sometimes they are friendly to the subject of an investigation, and sometimes they are hostile to the subject.”

Taylor also revealed that Miller’s office has requested a wide variety of campaign-related documents from him, but declined to specify what they are. He said he “would respond appropriately” through an attorney but declined to discuss the request further.

Just more than a year after she ousted Struiksma from office, Bernhardt faces an all-but-certain recall election--probably this spring--and two investigations into her campaign finances.

Miller’s office is investigating Bernhardt’s campaign finances, her association with Taylor and Taylor’s role as a paid consultant to McMillin Development, a builder attempting to win approval for a controversial development in Bernhardt’s former council district.

Bernhardt has said that she has nothing to hide and has offered to open her records to Miller’s office.

In addition, City Atty. John Witt’s office is reviewing whether Bernhardt’s outstanding campaign debt violates a city ordinance prohibiting a candidate from owing money to vendors for more than 30 days. Bernhardt has claimed that the statute is unconstitutional.

Bernhardt’s debt, which totaled $120,000 as of her June 30 campaign disclosure form, had been whittled to about $50,000 as of last month--all of it to Taylor and Charles, according to her treasurer.

Trettin said that he gave Rebelez a collection of 22 Bernhardt campaign mailers, along with literature sent on Bernhardt’s behalf by labor unions, the Sierra Club and an independent committee devoted to ousting Struiksma. Trettin, who sources say has been questioned by Rebelez, again declined to discuss that interview.

Barbara Bamberger, conservation coordinator for the Sierra Club, said that, during Bernhardt’s 1989 council campaign, her group sent out one mailer to 1,300 members of that organization who lived in what was then the 5th Council District. The boundaries of the district were changed in San Diego’s 1990 reapportionment.

Joseph Francis, executive secretary-treasurer for the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council, said a labor political action committee mailed two pieces to 6,500 AFL-CIO members in that district.

Two printers contacted by the Times--Atkinson and Anna Mullen, who is printing material for the Recall Bernhardt Committee--said the cost of mailers would vary widely depending on a number of variables, including the quality of paper used, the number of photographs included, the speed of production and the amount of color in the design.

Taylor said he oversaw production of perhaps 400,000 Bernhardt mailers, using a variety of methods to keep the price at between 24 and 31 cents each. He said the campaign raised and declared sufficient funds to cover that expenditure.