Bernson’s Challengers Pin Hopes on a Runoff : Election: The 12th District councilman is expected to heavily outspend his six rivals. But he may be vulnerable on development issues.

Faced with his toughest reelection fight ever, veteran Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson hopes to score a knockout victory in the April 9 municipal primary election by touting his law-and-order credentials and heavily outspending his six challengers.

His main rival, school board member Julie Korenstein, believes she can force Bernson into a June runoff election by attacking him for supporting the massive Porter Ranch development project while taking large sums of campaign money from its builders.

And a second-tier challenger, wealthy Chatsworth businessman Walter Prince, plans to watch as Bernson and Korenstein pummel each other with charges and countercharges and then beat a weakened Bernson in either the primary or the runoff.

With the primary election little more than seven weeks away, Bernson and his opponents are busily fine-tuning campaign battle plans, raising funds and interpreting polls for what promises to be an expensive slugfest.

A voter turnout of less than 25% is expected in Bernson’s 12th City Council district, which covers the northwestern San Fernando Valley. If no one candidate receives more than 50% of the primary vote, the two top vote-getters will face off in a June 4 runoff.

Bernson and his challengers are likely to spend a total of $600,000 during the primary election, and substantially more if a runoff is held. Bernson expects to raise about $300,000 for the primary alone, a spokesman for the councilman said.

Besides Bernson, Korenstein and Prince, the candidates are print-shop owner Allen Hecht of Granada Hills; Arthur (Larry) Kagele, a Los Angeles police detective; attorney Ronald Michelman of Chatsworth; and Leonard Shapiro, a Granada Hills retiree who publishes a small newspaper specializing in coverage of City Hall issues.

Michelman failed to submit enough valid voter signatures to qualify for the April ballot, but a spokesman said he still plans to campaign as a write-in candidate.

Political observers believe the primary campaign is likely to deteriorate quickly into a political punching match between Bernson and Korenstein, who has served on the school board since 1987.

“I think it’s likely that both of them will come out swinging,” said Kam Kuwata, a Democratic political consultant who managed Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy’s unsuccessful 1988 bid for the U.S. Senate.

Korenstein’s campaign manager, Parke Skelton, acknowledged that she does not expect to win the primary election. He said her strategy is to force Bernson into a runoff by sharply attacking him on issues of development and political ethics.

In a recent fund-raising letter, Korenstein charged that the councilman “sold off our community piece-by-piece in return for campaign contributions” from developers.

She cited Bernson’s strong support for Porter Ranch, which involves the construction of nearly 3,400 dwellings and 6 million square feet of commercial space in the rolling hills north of Chatsworth. Korenstein said that Bernson has accepted more than $50,000 in campaign donations from the ranch developer and his business associates.

Bernson has said repeatedly that he supports Porter Ranch because it is a well-planned, orderly project, not because he got campaign money from its builders. He also noted that the project, when completed, will be accompanied by $80-million worth of traffic mitigation measures.

But political analysts said Korenstein may be as vulnerable to attack due to her association with the problem-ridden school district, long a favorite target for Bernson and other local politicians in the San Fernando Valley.

Bernson spokesman Hal Dash said Korenstein’s tenure on the board amounts to “four years of non-leadership.”

“There’s a lot of unhappiness with the schools in the district. They have busing, they had the air conditioning problems. People know full well she’s a school board member and has failed to exhibit leadership but is now jumping ship,” he said.

Dash said Bernson will stress his efforts to bring more police officers into the Devonshire police division, and recent declines in local crime rates.

Skelton said Korenstein has “been a leader in the fight to improve safety and security in the schools.” He dismissed school busing as a campaign issue, saying: “Busing? He’s still fighting the busing wars? What busing is still going on in the district? That’s absurd.”

One political consultant who asked not to be identified said that although the race is officially nonpartisan, Bernson, a conservative Republican, is likely to attack Korenstein, a liberal Democrat, as being out of step with the generally conservative council district, where Republicans outnumber Democrats by nearly 52,000 to 47,000.

In 1987, when Korenstein first ran for the school board, Bernson signed a campaign letter sent by her opponent, Barbara Romey, to Jewish voters. The letter criticized Korenstein’s support for the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a liberal politician and civil rights activist who ran unsuccessfully for President in 1984 and 1988. One of Jackson’s key supporters was the Rev. Louis Farrakhan, a black Muslim leader who has been criticized for making anti-Semitic remarks.

Bernson “may play the Jesse Jackson card all over again,” said the consultant.

Bernson has predicted he will win in the primary, but his opponents and some independent observers believe he will be forced into a runoff election.

Kuwata, the Democratic consultant, drew a parallel between Bernson’s situation and that faced by former City Council President Pat Russell, who was defeated by slow-growth activist Ruth Galanter in a 1987 upset.

Like Bernson, Russell was known for supporting a large-scale development project in her district, said Kuwata, who managed her campaign. Also like Bernson, Russell faced a crowded field of candidates in the primary.

Although Russell beat Galanter 42% to 29% in the primary, the other candidates subsequently lined up behind Galanter, allowing her to beat Russell in the runoff by nearly 58% to 42%.

But Dash rejected that comparison, saying Bernson’s district is far more conservative than Galanter’s Westside district. He said Valley constituents are more concerned with issues such as crime prevention, an area where Bernson has a good record.

Dash also pointed out that Porter Ranch is yet to be built, and therefore less likely to be an immediate aggravation to voters.

Analysts said although Korenstein must direct withering attacks at Bernson, she must be careful not to snipe at the other challengers, whose support she needs if she is to beat Bernson in the runoff.

Indeed, Korenstein has already shown a willingness to create alliances with her fellow challengers. She recently joined with Prince and Hecht to pay for a $9,000 poll that surveyed voter attitudes toward all three candidates--an unusual undertaking given most candidates’ natural suspicion of joint venturing with their antagonists.

However, the brief alliance degenerated into squabbling after Korenstein’s campaign released to local newspapers the poll results pertaining to her. Hecht said the trio agreed not to do that unless all assented, but Skelton denied such a bargain was struck.

But observers say that Bernson has a rich campaign war chest and is likely to heavily outspend his rivals. They also said he will portray himself as a strong anti-crime advocate, and may be able to mobilize hundreds of Neighborhood Watch volunteers to assist.

“If he’s doing what he used to do, which is working with those block groups and working closely with them and the police, that’s a tremendous base of support. Crime is a big issue out there,” said Marc Litchman, a Democratic political consultant familiar with Valley politics.