Many Developers Reconsider Campaign Largess : Elections: Some say gifts arouse critics of growth and actually hurt candidates.

Real estate developer Brian Weinstock is a big fan of Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson. In fact, he likes the San Fernando Valley lawmaker so much that he refuses to contribute any money to Bernson’s reelection campaign.

“I absolutely am speaking for a lot of us in the development community,” Weinstock said. “We don’t want to give . . . because we don’t want to embarrass a politician.”

For decades developers have been the object of zealous wooing by cash-hungry candidates, but now they are emerging as the pariahs of some local political campaigns.

As the April 9 election nears, City Council incumbents still are eagerly courting developers, but it is an uneasy relationship that has become a central issue in the races of at least two incumbents.

Bernson, who is seeking a fourth term in the northern San Fernando Valley’s 12th District, faces five challengers in the toughest reelection campaign of his career. He is attempting to avoid an embarrassing runoff election against his strongest opponent, school board member Julie Korenstein, who has made Bernson’s support of the huge Porter Ranch development the focus of the campaign. The developers have contributed heavily to Bernson.

First-term Councilwoman Ruth Galanter faces six challengers in the 6th District, near Los Angeles International Airport, and is attempting to avoid a runoff against opponents who have criticized her for taking campaign donations from developers. Galanter won an upset victory four years ago by campaigning for support of the large number of voters who shared her anti-development sentiments.

A Times analysis of campaign records shows that development and real estate interests have contributed at least $10 million to local candidates over the last eight years. That figure includes only the major mayoral candidates and the winners of races for the City Council and the County Board of Supervisors.

While many challengers attract little or no money from developers, incumbents and major candidates can amass considerable amounts largely through the help of developers who contribute their own money or gather donations from others.

Records show, for instance, that Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky received at least $724,000 from real estate and development interests over the last eight years to fund his City Council campaigns and his abortive run for mayor. Yaroslavsky, who is not up for reelection this year, estimates that developer money accounts for one-third of all the money he has collected.

During that same period, Mayor Tom Bradley has collected at least $3.3 million from development interests for his mayoral and gubernatorial campaigns, a Times review found.

In the April 9 election, 42 candidates are competing for eight council seats. Final tallies of donations from developers and others will not be available until after the election.

But developers and lobbyists said in interviews last week that the recession, the backlash effect of their donations and a heightened ethical awareness in the city are combining to significantly reduce their campaign spending.

Ted Stein, a developer who is chairman of the city’s Planning Commission, said developers are cutting back dramatically on their contributions.

“Most of them have been hit pretty severely by the recession,” Stein said, “and are sitting on the sidelines because they don’t have anything pending before the city.”

Stein said he has cut back on his own political contributions because of his role on the Planning Commission and the potential for the appearance of conflict of interest. Still, he said he donates to some candidates he has known for years, including Bernson.

Dan Garcia, a lawyer-lobbyist who represents developers, said their donations are an important source of revenue for political campaigns, “but it doesn’t do a damn thing for the developers, as far as I can see.” Garcia, now a member of the city Police Commission, was once head of the Planning Commission.

Some of his clients, he said, have told him recently that the local real estate market is so bad that they see no point in spending money on donations.

“They’re not going to do it anymore,” Garcia said. “There’s been a lot of squawking. They say, ‘Why do we give this money? It’s sort of stupid. They (politicians) just turn us down.’ ”

Garcia said political donations do not buy votes for project approvals, but help developers gain access to the decision-makers. For smaller developers, donations are particularly important, he said. “It at least helps them get known.”

According to some developers, candidates of all stature have been inundating them with requests for money despite the political trouble the donations may spark.

Attorney Doug Ring, a development lobbyist, said he has been barraged with requests for money this year from all parts of the political spectrum, “including people I would not consider giving to under any circumstances.”

He recently turned down a solicitation from ultra-conservative Sen. Jesse Helms (R-North Carolina), who apparently had received his name from a widely circulated list of contributors to Los Angeles-area campaigns, Ring said.

Ring said he rejects most solicitations, giving only to candidates he knows personally or for whom he has particular regard. Ring was among several developers who said that they did not always feel they had the option of turning down requests for money.

Ring described an incident in which he was “truly strong-armed a few years back by someone running for assessor.” He would not name the candidate, who ultimately lost, but said the candidate threatened to place him on an “enemies list” if he did not come up with a contribution.

“He frightened me enough that I did,” Ring said, adding that the political climate has changed in the city and such an incident would be highly unusual today.

Developer Weinstock agreed that the climate regarding political contributions has changed, at least in part because of the emergence of the anti-development movement, which has turned contributions into double-edged swords.

“Slow-growth groups comb through the records looking for a tie to make it very difficult for a developer who has given to any politician,” said Weinstock. He said his firm will make no political contributions this year.

In past years, he said, his firm has either donated or helped collect as much as $25,000 per year. Records show that Weinstock, his company and relatives have donated $2,750 to Bernson since 1984.

Weinstock said Bernson, whom he views as “one of our finest politicians,” is “taking a beating” over his acceptance of contributions from business interests involved in the Porter Ranch project. “It’s one of the prime examples of how some of this can backfire,” he said.

At Bernson’s urging, the City Council last year approved the vast Porter Ranch development, including 3,395 new housing units and 6 million feet of commercial space to be constructed in the foothills above Chatsworth.

Bernson has received about $5,000 in donations from Porter Ranch interests since the development was approved and more than $50,000 in contributions from Porter Ranch interests over the last nine years.

Bernson bridles at criticism from Korenstein and others, saying that he scrupulously avoided accepting any money from the developers during the two-year period while the project was pending before the City Council.

Councilman Nate Holden, who is running with little substantial opposition in the 10th District, said he is not concerned about the potential appearance of conflicts of interest posed by developer donations to his campaign.

Holden reported receiving $2,000 from principals of Chicago’s Henry C. Crown Co., who had been negotiating for years to develop a major hotel and retail center at the Ambassador Hotel property in Holden’s district. The Crown interests were bought out by a group that eventually included New York real estate magnate Donald Trump, who wanted to build the world’s tallest building on the site.

“They gave me money because I asked them for it,” Holden said of the Crowns. Holden added that he was rebuffed by Trump, who “wouldn’t send diddly squat.”

Galanter may be having the toughest time of any incumbent this year because some opponents believe that she has drifted far from the anti-development stance that originally got her elected. Last month, they seized on campaign reports that showed strong support from some of the development interests that had denounced Galanter four years ago.

One lobbyist, Arthur K. Snyder, who has represented some of the biggest development projects in the city, collected 17 contributions totaling $8,500 for Galanter in the last six months of 1990, according to the reports.

In fact, a group of 37 developers, lobbyists and other political insiders sponsored a lavish $500-a-ticket fund raiser for Galanter at the Biltmore. Among the hosts were Garcia, Ring, and pro-development lobbyists Steve Afriat, Maureen Kindel and Fran Savitch. Several said they have had been pleasantly surprised by Galanter’s moderate approach to development issues.

Galanter said she has told developers that they would be better off waiting until after her reelection to submit projects. She said in an interview that she has given this bit of “friendly” advice to several builders: “If you want to deal with this on a calm, rational level . . . do not have it come up in the middle of an election.”

Galanter offers no apologies for her newfound supporters and says she has a policy of turning down contributions from developers who have controversial projects pending in her district. “People sent me here to do two things,” Galanter said, “to take care of the district and to get things done.’

She acknowledged that she may have disappointed supporters who expected her to go to City Hall and “make people as angry as possible.”

Galanter’s moderate approach has caused her some problems of an opposite nature in the Crenshaw area, the one part of her district needing an economic boost. One opponent, Tavis Smiley, has criticized her for passing up a chance to have an Ikea furniture story on the site of the Santa Barbara Plaza.

Galanter said she balked because developer Alexander Haagen wanted the city to condemn the 25 acres of land and give it to him for redevelopment, displacing small minority business owners.

In the future, developers said last week, the controversy over contributions from real estate interests is likely to grow and candidates will increasingly have to look for other sources of campaign money.

“Political contributions are down,” said developer Weinstock, “and they’re coming down.”

Times staff writers Nancy Hill-Holtzman, James Rainey and John Schwada, and editorial researcher Cecilia Rasmussen, contributed to this story.