CITY COUNCIL ELECTIONS 12TH DISTRICT : Korenstein Says She Doesn’t Recall ’84 Bid to Be Jackson Delegate

Los Angeles City Council candidate Julie Korenstein said Friday she “can’t even remember” if she sought election as a delegate pledged to the Rev. Jesse Jackson at the 1984 Democratic National Convention.

Korenstein’s past support of the liberal civil-rights activist and two-time candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination has been raised repeatedly in recent days by Councilman Hal Bernson, a conservative Republican battling Korenstein in the June 4 runoff election for his northwest San Fernando Valley seat.

Korenstein, a Los Angeles school board member and liberal Democrat, has said she worked as a volunteer campaigner for Jackson in 1984. She said Friday that she “may have run” to become a Jackson delegate but wasn’t sure.

According to state and Los Angeles County election officials, Korenstein’s name appeared on the June, 1984, ballot as a candidate for a Jackson delegate from the 21st Congressional District, which includes northern and western portions of the Valley. She received 2,237 votes but was not elected, officials said.

Bernson, who claimed Korenstein was an elected Jackson delegate, said her association with him “shows she is not in step with the voters of this district, that her philosophy doesn’t fit this district.”

“She’s an ultra-liberal--not just a liberal, but a radical--and this is not a radical district. This is a moderate-to-conservative district. . . . She’s looking to hide her record now because it doesn’t help her politically,” he said.

Asked if she stood for election as a Jackson delegate, Korenstein said: “I don’t believe so. I can’t even remember. It must be eight or nine years ago.”

Informed that records of the Los Angeles County registrar of voters list her as a 1984 delegate candidate, she said: “I may have run. I don’t remember anymore. . . . I am not denying it.”

She said she worked for Jackson’s campaign because, as an educator, she believed in his proposals to help “disadvantaged students get out of drugs and gangs.” She did not support him after 1984, she said.

Korenstein said Bernson raised the Jackson issue only to divert attention from what she considers the main issue in the campaign: overdevelopment and Bernson’s longtime backing for the mammoth Porter Ranch project north of Chatsworth.

“You’d think he was running against Jackson already,” she said. “He likes to compare himself to Reagan, but I don’t think he’s anything like Reagan. This is not Reagan running against Jackson; this is Korenstein and Bernson running.”

Korenstein’s campaign manager, Parke Skelton, has said “there’s an element” of racism in Bernson’s attempt to use Jackson, an African-American, as a campaign weapon against Korenstein. But he speculated that the tactic will sway few voters.