CITY COUNCIL ELECTIONS / 12TH DISTRICT : Landfill Owner Spends $3,500 on Anti-Bernson Phone Calls

Browning-Ferris Industries, owner of the Sunshine Canyon garbage dump above Granada Hills, has spent at least $3,500 on a political drive to oust Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson, a longtime opponent of the firm’s plans, it was learned Friday.

Los Angeles school board member Julie Korenstein, who is campaigning to take Bernson’s seat in a runoff election Tuesday, said she knew nothing of the firm’s actions and restated her opposition to the firm’s plan to expand the dump, which is highly unpopular among Granada Hills voters.

“I’m stunned, shocked,” Korenstein said on learning that the dump company was, in effect, aiding her campaign.

Bernson said he thought that the Browning-Ferris effort would backfire in his favor.

Browning-Ferris Vice President Les Bittenson said the aim was not to help Korenstein but to get rid of the councilman because the firm is tired of “being made a whipping boy by Bernson.”

According to public records and Bittenson, the company hired a phone bank service to call voters and deliver an anti-Bernson message from May 24 until at least last Thursday. Bernson has been a tough opponent of the solid-waste firm’s efforts to expand its dump in a canyon above Granada Hills.

The expenditures for the anti-Bernson phone operation were disclosed on campaign finance reports filed with the City Clerk this week and later confirmed by Bittenson.

“Would any change in leadership be preferable? Yes, it would,” said Bittenson, who authorized the expenditures but refused to give any details Friday about the phone bank operation. “It’s not a matter of supporting Korenstein. . . . I don’t know if she’s got any leanings,” he said.

The embattled Bernson camp interpreted the report as good for their campaign, saying it highlighted one of their key messages--that Bernson, not Korenstein, is the real champion of homeowners fighting Browning-Ferris’ landfill plan. “This ratifies what we’ve been saying all along,” Bernson aide Greig Smith said.

“I think it should be a big boost for us,” added Bernson. “I’ve suspected for some time that they’ve been involved in trying to hurt me politically.”

Bernson stopped short of accusing Korenstein of secretly plotting with Browning-Ferris. “Everybody’s going to have to draw their own conclusions,” Bernson said. “I think at the very least it shows they’d rather have her than me on the council.”

The disclosure came as Bernson prepared to mail out campaign literature this weekend featuring a letter written by Allen Robert Hecht, a Northridge print shop owner who drew 13.8% of the vote as one of five candidates who ran against Bernson in the April primary election.

Hecht’s letter, which is being mailed to Granada Hills voters, challenges Korenstein’s credibility on the Sunshine Canyon issue.

“During the primary, Julie Korenstein claimed to be one of the founders” of Dump the Dump, a community group opposed to the landfill, wrote Hecht, a founder of the organization. But Korenstein was “never at any Dump the Dump meeting I attended and her name is not on the North Valley Coalition mailing list,” Hecht said.

Bernson said Hecht’s testimonial reveals that Korenstein is lying, a frequently used theme of the Bernson campaign. One of Bernson’s final political mailers--titled “Julie Korenstein’s Record Sends Her To The Bottom Of The Charts”--opens up to a drawing of a musical record bearing the mock album title “Flip-Flop.”

Asked if he had any suspicion that the Browning-Ferris campaign was really aimed at hurting, not helping Korenstein, Parke Skelton, Korenstein’s campaign manager, said: “I don’t think it’s a dirty trick to sabotage Julie.

“They hate Bernson, and would like to get rid of him. BFI and Bernson have been involved in this infantile battle for years.

“I think this is stupidity on somebody’s part” at Browning-Ferris, because Korenstein “is a strong opponent of the dump and would continue Bernson’s policies,” Skelton said.

Why Browning-Ferris would spend only $3,500 on such an effort is also baffling, Skelton said. An expenditure of that amount would buy a phone bank operation that could reach only about 3,000 people, he estimated.

BACKGROUND

Browning-Ferris Industries has had a landfill in Sunshine Canyon, straddling the Los Angeles city limits, since the 1960s. But the firm’s city permit expires in September. Last February, the County Board of Supervisors approved the firm’s plan to develop a 200-acre landfill on a portion of Sunshine Canyon on unincorporated county land. But the supervisors approved a dump capable of handling only 17 million tons of garbage, not the 70 million tons the firm sought. In 1990, City Councilman Hal Bernson blocked an effort by Browning-Ferris to expand in the city, and is now threatening to challenge the supervisors’ approval of the dump in county territory.