No Charges Filed in Theft of Signs From Bernson Rivals : Politics: Police can’t identify two men in a truck described by witnesses. The license plate had been traced to a man the councilman helped.

Prosecutors said Tuesday they will file no charges in the alleged theft of 1,500 campaign signs posted by election opponents of Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson, citing an absence of proof that the signs were ripped down by Bernson supporters.

The case was shelved after police were unable to identify two men in a pickup truck who witnesses said removed some signs less than two weeks before the April 9 city primary election, in which Bernson faced five opponents.

“We sent it back to the police for further investigation and they couldn’t come up with anything,” Deputy City Atty. Dave Knokey said.

Two witnesses to one of the sign-removal incidents told police that the truck bore a license plate which turned out to be registered to Alan D. Fox, a San Fernando Valley businessman whom Bernson helped with a 1989 zoning change.

Detective Sandra Palmer said police interviewed Fox and several employees of his business, Ram Tire and Automotive Co. in Sepulveda. But witnesses were unable to identify any of them as the culprits, Palmer said.

“We can’t eliminate him nor can we identify him,” she said of Fox. “He’s the registered owner of the vehicle, but we can’t determine who used the vehicle.”

Fox could not be reached for comment.

Two of Bernson’s primary election opponents, Northridge janitorial-firm owner Walter Prince and Northridge printer Allen Hecht, told police in late March that someone had stolen 1,500 of their campaign signs valued at $10,000.

Bernson defeated both men but faces a June 4 runoff against Los Angeles school board member Julie Korenstein.

At the time his signs disappeared, Prince blamed unnamed Bernson supporters for the thefts, saying “they have the same kind of ethics he does.”

A Bernson spokesman, Greig Smith, denied that the councilman had directed the removal of any of his opponents’ signs. But Smith added that he didn’t object to them being taken down, contending that most were illegally posted and constituted “political graffiti.”

Two witnesses--Democratic Party activist Mark Lit of Northridge and his wife, Estelle--told investigators in late March that they saw several signs promoting anti-Bernson candidates being removed by two men in a pickup truck from around a Ralphs supermarket at Devonshire Street and Reseda Boulevard.

The Lits, who support Korenstein, noted the license plate, which police later traced to Fox.

In 1989, Bernson pushed successfully for a zoning change that permitted Fox and his brother, Cary Fox, to build Fox’s Tire and Auto Center, a 7,000-square-foot auto repair facility, on property they own at 19321 Roscoe Blvd.

Such a facility was not allowed under a 1988 rezoning of the property that specifically banned its use for car repairs.

Cary Fox told The Times last month that the zoning change was not unusual and that “we didn’t get any special treatment” from Bernson, whose council district includes the site of the repair business. Bernson has declined to talk about his dealings with the Foxes.