L.A. CITY COUNCIL ELECTIONS / 12TH DISTRICT : Korenstein Uses Growth Debate to Force Runoff

In apparently forcing Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson into a June runoff election, school board member Julie Korenstein has set the stage for another two months of campaigning that is likely to again focus on the volatile issue of growth in the northwest San Fernando Valley.

Bernson appeared in early returns to have failed to receive the majority of votes he needed to win outright. Bernson had predicted that he would beat Korenstein and four other opponents in the primary.

“We will continue to campaign as we have in the past month,” said Korenstein late Tuesday night as elated supporters milled around her at a Northridge home. “The concern and the frustration remains, and developers will not keep control of this district.”

Bernson outspent Korenstein by as much as 3 to 1 in the primary. But Korenstein’s strategy was to keep Bernson below the 50%-plus-one vote majority necessary to avoid a runoff and, by garnering the backing of other anti-Bernson candidates, beat him in June.

“If you add up all the anti-Bernson votes, they come to about 65%. That’s what we’re going for in the runoff,” she said.

“In his past elections, he had between 75% and 80% of the vote, or something like that. For an incumbent to drop to 35% is a tremendous fall.”

The co-manager of Bernson’s campaign, Hal Dash, said the incumbent would be much more aggressive against Korenstein in the runoff, “magnifying and underlining” their political differences.

Bernson said he would raise questions about Korenstein’s tenure on the school board and her stance on crime issues.

“She’ll have to run on her record on the school board, and that’s abysmal,” he said.

Although all four of the other challengers in the race said last week that they would not support Korenstein in a runoff, some candidates had shifted their positions by late Tuesday. Arthur (Larry) Kagele, a Los Angeles police detective, said he reluctantly supports her, while newsletter publisher Leonard Shapiro said he had not decided.

However, candidates Allen Hecht, a print shop owner, and businessman Walter Prince reiterated their refusal to support Korenstein.

“We are philosophically on opposite ends of the world,” Prince said. “I see her as another Hal Bernson.”

Bernson’s failure to win a majority appeared to support opponents’ charges that voters were angry at him over what they perceived as his encouragement of growth in the 12th Council District.

Korenstein and the other challengers repeatedly attacked Bernson over Porter Ranch, which is designed to house more than 11,000 people in the foothills north of Chatsworth. Opponents argued that the development will badly aggravate traffic congestion and pollution and overload local schools and water and sewer services.

A Los Angeles Times Poll taken two weeks ago found that Bernson had suffered substantial political damage over the ranch issue. Forty-two percent of registered voters in the district said his handling of Porter Ranch made them feel less favorably toward him. And nearly two-thirds said they thought development was proceeding too fast in their neighborhood.

Bernson’s opponents also used the issue of political ethics as a weapon. At candidate forums and in campaign literature, Korenstein and other challengers charged that Bernson acted unethically by accepting more than $55,000 in campaign contributions from Porter Ranch’s developer, Nathan Shapell, and his business allies since 1982. They said Bernson backed the project because of the money, a charge the councilman denied.

Korenstein also held a news conference to criticize Bernson for spending privately raised campaign funds. She charged that since 1987 Bernson spent more than $124,000 on “travel junkets” to numerous foreign destinations and another $48,000 on meals for himself, his staff and political supporters. The news conference was held outside Cafe Como, an upscale Northridge restaurant where she said Bernson spent more than $9,300.

To reinforce her image as an ethical politician and environmentalist, Korenstein touted her endorsement by Geoff Cowan, former head of Mayor Tom Bradley’s ethics commission, and by the Sierra Club.

For his part, Bernson largely refrained from counterattacking Korenstein or his other foes. Dash compared his candidate’s restraint to Israel’s decision not to respond to the Scud missile attacks of Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War.

Instead, Bernson campaigned hard, deluging voters with tens of thousands of campaign brochures and walking precincts virtually every weekend since late January. He portrayed himself as a law-and-order champion, advertising endorsements by several police organizations.

Apparently realizing the volatility of the Porter Ranch issue, however, he refrained from taking any campaign donations from Shapell during the race. He also tried to portray the ranch--which will not be finished for at least 20 years--as a distant issue that posed no immediate problems for constituents.

Bernson tried to blunt his image as a reliable pro-development vote on the council by pointing out that he also had worked to preserve Chatsworth Reservoir and protect mature oak trees from developers’ chain saws.

Times staff writers John Schwada, Sam Enriquez and Steve Padilla contributed to this story.