CITY COUNCIL ELECTIONS 12TH DISTRICT : Bernson, Foe Trade Charges in Interview Taped for TV

Julie Korenstein acknowledged that she once belonged to the left-wing Peace and Freedom Party and Hal Bernson again defended his support of the controversial Porter Ranch project as the two City Council candidates clashed Friday during a television interview.

In their first one-on-one confrontation, Bernson and Korenstein also squabbled over Korenstein’s statements about embattled Police Chief Daryl F. Gates and sought to justify their acceptance of campaign contributions from special-interest groups.

Bernson, a 12-year council incumbent, and Korenstein, a Los Angeles school board member, are locked in an increasingly bitter struggle in the June 4 runoff election for Bernson’s 12th District seat, which represents the northwest San Fernando Valley.

Although he led Korenstein and four other opponents in the April 9 primary, Bernson failed to win the 50%-plus-one vote majority needed to avoid a runoff.

Near the beginning of the videotaped interview program, to be broadcast at 4 p.m. Sunday on KCBS-TV, Channel 2, Bernson said: “People have to know that at one time she was a Peace and Freedom member.” He also noted Korenstein’s backing of the Rev. Jesse Jackson when the civil-rights activist sought the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination.

The Peace and Freedom Party was organized in 1968 by members of the anti-Vietnam War movement. Its presidential candidate in California that year was Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver. Although the party once boasted 90,000 California members, today it has less than half that number.

In recent weeks, Bernson, a conservative Republican, has repeatedly called attention to Korenstein’s background as a liberal Democrat, hoping it will damage her in his moderate-to-conservative council district, the only one in the city where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats.

Korenstein, 47, acknowledged that she was a Peace and Freedom Party member “about 15 years ago . . . when I was a rather young woman.”

“I wasn’t ready at that point to become a member of either of the major parties; I wanted to be an independent. And many of us went through that,” she said.

Asked after the TV taping if she considered herself a liberal, Korenstein said: “I’ve never really liked the word liberal, to be very frank. I like the word progressive a lot better. It stands for a very idealistic person and I am very responsible and very, very committed to my ideals.”

During the taping, Korenstein repeated her criticism of Bernson for his strong efforts to win city approval for the mammoth Porter Ranch project, designed to house more than 11,000 people in the hills north of Chatsworth when it is completed in 20 years.

Bernson defended a council-approved plan for the development, saying it is “more protective” of the environment than a 1974 plan and “cuts down considerably on the amount of development that’s allowed there.”

Bernson also attacked Korenstein for her call in March for the resignation of Chief Gates, a popular figure in the 12th District.

Korenstein said that she had urged the chief to voluntarily step down in the wake of the Rodney G. King beating “because the city was really wounded at that time” and she believed his quitting would help heal it.

Korenstein also said she opposed the city Police Commission’s vote to suspend the chief. She said she approved of the City Council’s later reinstatement of the chief and as a council member would have voted to return him to work.

Bernson accused Korenstein of “trying to waffle and backtrack” on her original opposition to the chief “now that she’s found it’s not so popular.”

Bernson also criticized Korenstein for “accepting $70,000 from the teachers union” during her 1987 race for the school board and later voting for “a massive pay increase” for teachers that he said damaged the district’s finances.

Korenstein disputed that the entire sum came from the union, saying state law at the time limited contributions from groups to $5,000. She said she was proud that she also received many donations from individual teachers. She said it was important to raise teachers’ salaries to improve the quality of education.

Asked by Channel 2 interviewer Terry Anzur if he thought it was proper to accept more than $55,000 over nine years from the developer of Porter Ranch and his business associates, Bernson said he took no such donations during the 1 1/2-year period when the project was before the City Council.