ELECTIONS / REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK : A Day and Night of Dreams, Nightmares and Dirty Socks

Election Day in the San Fernando Valley featured a rarity in City Council politics--a tight race involving an entrenched incumbent--and the passing of a political institution in Burbank. It was a day that belonged to big shots and long shots, pranksters and pontificators, insiders and gadflies.

Here are some moments:

On Tuesday morning, feisty City Hall-watcher and candidate Leonard Shapiro took to the streets in a car with a loudspeaker on the roof. “IF YOU WANT RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT, VOTE FOR LEONARD SHAPIRO,” blared the tape-recorded slogan. He brought his message to Bernson campaign headquarters.

“They just looked out the window,” Shapiro said. “Nobody came out.”

Undaunted, he drove to the business of rival challenger Walter Prince and cranked the tape full blast.

“The walls started rumbling,” said Prince employee Annette Spears. “We cheered. We love Leonard. We were laughing our heads off.”

Bernson quipped later that Shapiro, who publishes a newsletter highly critical of city government, did not need a loudspeaker to be heard.

With the zeal of a Chicago precinct captain, longtime Korenstein associate and campaign adviser Ed Burke described his get-out-the-vote effort as applied to a blind man in a wheelchair, who told Burke his usual polling place was at a park around the corner.

“I wheel him to the park and it’s not there,” Burke said. “So we go to the library and they say, ‘No, it’s not here.’ We tried Tulsa Avenue School, and nothing. I call up the city clerk and they say the guy isn’t even registered to vote. I said, ‘I don’t care, just tell me where this precinct votes.’

“We finally get to the place after wheeling about a mile and a half and it turns out the guy is registered,” Burke said.

So, did Korenstein get a vote after all that?

Burke says he knows she did.

“He was blind and I had to vote for him. I asked him, ‘Who do you want?’ and he yelled out, ‘Julie Korenstein.’ ”

A nameless trio played Beatles songs and a swarm of lobbyists ate homemade lasagna off paper plates as 150 faithful gathered to root for Bernson at his Election Night party at the Northridge Woman’s Club.

The crowd included real estate lobbyists Ken Spiker, the Los Angeles City Council’s own former chief legislative analyst; red-haired Art Snyder, the flamboyant former Eastside councilman; and Robert Wilkinson, who represented the controversial Porter Ranch project.

Even after it was clear that the returns were pointing inexorably to a runoff between Korenstein and Bernson, even after many a disappointed Bernson loyalist had drifted home, the lobbyists hung on.

Snyder, no stranger to political adversity himself, was one of the last to go. At one point he slung his arm around Bernson’s shoulder.

Korenstein, who has survived five Election Nights over the past four years, said she has a sure-fire weight-loss secret that could ruin business for the Ultra Slim Fast and Oprah Winfrey diets if it gets out: politics.

In each campaign, she said, “I usually lose about five pounds, and go to a size 2 from a size 4.”

Korenstein figured she was headed for a runoff because she had only lost about three pounds before Tuesday’s election.

“As soon as I win, I go right back up.”

Wardrobe can also be a campaign casualty, Councilman Joel Wachs disclosed, as he watched vote totals lead him to an easy win over two lesser-known opponents.

The urbane art collector found himself in a sharp-dressed man’s nightmare on Election Day. He was out of clean socks.

“The laundry has been piling up,” he said. “I have been so busy with council business and the campaign, I finally realized I didn’t have any more clean socks. I had to either wash some or buy some new ones.”

After voting in the morning, Wachs stopped by the Laundromat. This conscientious act no doubt met with the approval of his mother and top political operative, 81-year-old Hanna Wachs, who the councilman thanked at his North Hollywood victory party for “20 years of stuffing envelopes.”

Mrs. Wachs was busy packing food for departing guests and recounting highlights of her son’s career in proud motherly fashion.

“He was the first boy who was not affiliated with a fraternity who was ever elected president of UCLA,” she said.

The Bernson party had finally broken up. The councilman was heading toward the exit.

But he had not yet conceded that the results meant a runoff. He was pestered by a reporter to do so.

Bernson, still declining to utter the words, finally responded: “Do I need to draw a picture for you?”

At Burbank City Hall, the reign of colorful, popular, controversial Councilwoman Mary Lou Howard came to a close after three terms in office.

The early vote totals did not look good for Howard. And City Councilman Michael Hastings, although a longtime political rival of Howard, expressed his feelings to a reporter in earnest, heartfelt tones.

“We’ll miss Mary Lou,” Hastings said.

Seconds later, city officials posted new vote totals. Hastings interrupted the interview to take a look. The numbers showed that Howard was doing even worse.

Hastings cheered lustily and pumped his fist in the air.

On hand to mark the end of the Howard era were 75 of the councilwoman’s supporters, who gathered at the Holiday Inn across the street from City Hall. They watched C-SPAN. They nursed drinks quietly.

Until veteran council gadfly Melvin Perlitsh piped up, loudly and cheerfully: “What do you say at a wake?”

The ensuing silence gave him his answer.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Aaron Curtiss, Sam Enriquez, Amy Louise Kazmin, Steve Padilla and John Schwada.