L.A. CITY COUNCIL ELECTIONS / 12TH DISTRICT : Bernson Foes Ride the Porter Ranch Issue

As Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson runs for reelection, his biggest political stumbling block is a development still years away from completion: the mammoth Porter Ranch complex in the northwestern San Fernando Valley.

Although Bernson has supported a number of large developments in his 12 years on the council, the sheer scale of Porter Ranch has alarmed many residents in his 12th District, an affluent suburban enclave where open space is prized and horse owners are a politically potent special interest group.

Designed to house more than 11,000 people, the ranch development will cover 1,300 acres--more land than any other development ever built in the city of Los Angeles. The project, approved by the City Council last year, includes 850 hotel rooms and a regional shopping mall.

Mostly as a result of his well-publicized support of Porter Ranch, Bernson faces five challengers in the April 9 city election--the most rivals since he was elected in 1979.

Opponents claim that the development--which is not expected to be completed for 20 years or longer--will create monumental traffic and pollution problems and will overload schools, sewage plants and water-delivery facilities in the area.

The other candidates for Bernson’s seat are Los Angeles Board of Education member Julie Korenstein of Northridge; printer Allen Hecht of Granada Hills; Los Angeles police detective Arthur (Larry) Kagele; Leonard Shapiro, who publishes a 2,000-circulation newsletter about city government from his Granada Hills home, and wealthy businessman Walter Prince of Chatsworth, who spent $55,000 of his own money on an unsuccessful attempt to recall Bernson two years ago.

Bernson holds an enormous fund-raising advantage over his challengers. Late last month, he reported raising more than $200,000 for the race. Korenstein, his best-known challenger, reported raising $28,000, including a $15,000 loan from her own pocket. Prince said he raised about $35,000, including a $30,000 loan from personal funds. The other candidates trailed in fund raising.

Despite the volatile growth issue, Bernson, a conservative Republican, is confident he will win a majority of votes in the April 9 election, thereby avoiding a June 4 runoff. His campaign intends to spend $300,000 on the primary race, compared to $100,000 for Korenstein.

“It’s no secret that Porter Ranch is something that people are concerned about. But we don’t believe we’re vulnerable on it,” he said.

Bernson, 60, contends that Porter Ranch is a well-planned project that, with millions of dollars’ worth of developer-paid traffic-mitigation measures, actually will reduce traffic congestion in the area.

He also argues it is a big improvement over a 1974 city growth plan that would have allowed even more housing and commercial development in and around Porter Ranch. Bernson has repeatedly reminded voters that the ranch scheme is “a plan, not a project” and will not be completed for years.

But Korenstein and other opponents have hit hard at the issue, as well as at Bernson’s acceptance of more than $55,000 in campaign contributions from the project’s builder, Nathan Shappell, and his business associates over the past nine years. Opponents say the money is the reason that Bernson has emerged as Porter Ranch’s main City Hall sponsor.

“When I talk to people, I say we need a city councilperson who represents the needs and interests of the community,” said Korenstein, 47. “We do not want a councilperson who represents vested interests of developers, and this is a classic case of that.”

Bernson said contributions never have influenced his votes or his support of Porter Ranch. “The key is whether you have the integrity to be impartial when you accept contributions,” he said last week.

Bernson and Korenstein’s personal and political histories are as different as night and day. A onetime T-shirt salesman, Bernson was among the founders of a group that advocated turning the Valley into separate city and was a strong supporter of the anti-busing movement in the 1970s.

A former substitute teacher, Korenstein is a liberal Democrat who cut her political teeth in the anti-nuclear movement. She was a volunteer campaign worker for the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the then-Chicago-based minister and civil rights activist, in his 1984 presidential bid.

However, Korenstein has taken some steps toward the center while on the school board, where she represents the West Valley. Among other things, she authored the board policy expelling students who bring weapons on campus.

Predictably, Bernson and Korenstein differ sharply on a number of issues. She supports a two-term limit for city elected officials while Bernson opposes it. Korenstein has called for Police Chief Daryl F. Gates’ resignation, but Bernson, a longtime Gates supporter, said he will not put on pressure on him to resign.

But in candidate forums and campaign brochures, Porter Ranch is the main topic.

Korenstein has been endorsed by the Sierra Club and League of Conservation Voters, whose spokesmen complain that Bernson has promoted overdevelopment throughout the city as chairman of the City Council’s planning committee.

“This is an environmental race and it’s a citywide race,” said Laura Lake, a board member of the Los Angeles League of Conservation Voters and UCLA professor of environmental science and engineering.

Bernson has attacked Korenstein for what he called her “lack of leadership” in the school district. He also alleges that she is too liberal for the moderate-to-conservative 12th District.

Korenstein is running without the organized support of her main political angel, the United Teachers--Los Angeles. Of the $108,000 she spent in her 1987 school board race, the teachers union contributed $70,000.

But this year union is concentrating its efforts on four school board races, and has no plans to send campaign workers to Korenstein, said president Helen Bernstein. Also, under new city campaign rules, the union can contribute a maximum of $500 to candidates.

But Korenstein said that is not a liability because she is developing new constituencies in her council campaign and still expects support from many individual teachers.

With far less campaign money than Bernson, Korenstein’s campaign manager, Parke Skelton, has acknowledged that Korenstein has little chance of winning in the primary. Instead, she hopes to force him into a runoff and, aided by other anti-Bernson forces, beat him in June.