Bernson Holds Slim Lead Over Korenstein : Election: The close contest hinges on the massive Porter Ranch development. The councilman supported the plan and his challenger opposed it.

Veteran Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson held a slim lead over challenger Julie Korenstein in a close race Tuesday for Bernson’s council seat in an election widely viewed as a referendum on growth in the northwest San Fernando Valley.

With about three-quarters of the vote counted, Bernson was about 600 votes ahead of Korenstein in the affluent, suburban 12th Council District, which Bernson has represented since 1979.

Korenstein, a Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education member, based her campaign on her opposition to the mammoth Porter Ranch project north of Chatsworth--designed to house more than 11,000 people--which Bernson has strongly supported at City Hall.

Korenstein, 47, also questioned Bernson’s political ethics in accepting more than $55,000 in campaign contributions from developer Nathan Shapell and his business allies, saying the money influenced Bernson to back the project.

Bernson, 60, denied that charge and sought to defuse the development issue by portraying Porter Ranch as a model of good planning. He also repeatedly reminded voters that the ranch is “a plan, not a project” that may never be entirely built.

The Bernson-Korenstein race was for one of five council seats at stake in Tuesday’s election, which could reshape political alignments in the city and could shore up Mayor Tom Bradley’s flagging support on the council.

Bernson’s fellow incumbent, Ruth Galanter, who represents the 6th District near Los Angeles International Airport, all but declared victory late Tuesday, with more than half of the precincts reporting. “I’m not sure of the exact numbers but I’m planning to go to work tomorrow,” she told cheering supporters.

In the central city’s 8th District, Mark Ridley-Thomas, a Bradley-backed candidate, had a substantial lead but stopped short of declaring victory over Roderick Wright, who was endorsed by U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles). Ridley-Thomas pledged to uphold his campaign promise to improve basic city services to the district.

In the nearby 9th District, longtime City Council aide Bob Gay, who was backed by Waters, was running even with Rita Walters, the school board member backed by Bradley, to replace the late Councilman Gilbert W. Lindsay, who presided over the district for 27 years until his death last December.

In the 1st District primary, the mood was jubilant at the Eastside headquarters of Mike Hernandez, who had a substantial lead and appeared headed toward a runoff with either Sharon Mee Yung Lowe or Sandra Figueroa. Hernandez is the candidate backed by Gloria Molina, who left the 1st District seat to become a Los Angeles County supervisor.

Citywide, voters faced an array of ballot measures, including a $298.8-million bond issue for recreational and cultural improvements that appeared to be failing. A new anti-graffiti tax also was failing.

Voters appeared to be approving a controversial City Charter amendment that would give the City Council greater control over city commissions. The measure was strongly opposed by the mayor, who intended to keep it off the ballot with a veto, but mistakenly signed it.

Bernson was forced into Tuesday’s runoff with Korenstein after he won only 35% of the vote--the lowest percentage of any council incumbent in 20 years--in the April 9 city primary election. Besides Korenstein, he faced four other primary opponents, each of whom criticized his position on Porter Ranch.

After his weak showing in April, Bernson, a conservative Republican, tried to attack Korenstein, a liberal Democrat, on ideological grounds, arguing that she was too far left for the moderate-to-conservative 12th District.

Bernson also tried to capitalize on Korenstein’s call for Police Chief Daryl F. Gates to resign after the King beating, a statement Bernson used in campaign mailers to rally conservative and pro-law-enforcement voters. Gates joined in by endorsing Bernson, a City Hall ally, setting off a controversy over the propriety of the chief’s involvement in politics.

In campaign literature and televised interviews, Bernson sought to underscore Korenstein’s liberalism, pointing out that she once belonged to the left-wing Peace and Freedom Party and was a delegate for the Rev. Jesse Jackson at the 1984 Democratic National Convention. (Records show Korenstein sought election as a delegate but did not receive enough votes).

Korenstein replied that voters were less concerned with political labels than with growth and its effect on the quality of life in the area.

She pledged that if elected, she would work to slash the 6-million-square-foot commercial portion of Porter Ranch by 90% and eliminate a proposed regional shopping mall--moves regarded by some as politically and legally unrealistic.

Since Jan. 1, Bernson raised nearly three times as much campaign money as Korenstein, banking $326,000 to her $122,000.

Both Bernson and Korenstein fielded about 100 precinct walkers Tuesday in a final effort to get out the vote. Bernson spent the afternoon walking precincts in the North Hills area after working at City Hall for several hours.

Meanwhile, Korenstein made dozens of phone calls urging her supporters to get to the polls.

As vote results trickled in shortly after 11 p.m., Bernson said the election was “a horse race.”

“I’m not nervous, though. It’s in the hands of the Lord,” he said, huddling with campaign consultant Harvey Englander and reviewing figures showing him with a 334-vote lead over Korenstein.

As midnight neared, the councilman and his wife, Robyn, began dancing to a recording of the Beatles’ “Twist and Shout” as returns showed his thin lead holding.

Korenstein, who followed the returns with suppporters at a Northridge home, said she couldn’t speculate on the outcome until all the votes were counted.

“After Bernson did so terribly in the primary, he got nervous and desperate,” she said. “He started lashing out in an 11th-hour smear campaign. But I don’t think he could deflect from the real issue, which is overdevelopment in the north Valley.”

Officials expected a turnout of 15% to 20% of the registered voters, a relatively high number for a general election in recent years.

Continuing a trend, voters cast a record high number of absentee ballots, according to Joseph Giles, a senior analyst for the city clerk’s office.

Voters in 30 polling places throughout the city ran into problems Tuesday and a number apparently were turned away because of lack of personnel or supplies.

Only an hour before the polls closed at 7 p.m., Superior Court Judge Ronald Sohigian denied a request to extend voting hours at a Koreatown polling place that opened 2 1/2 hours late. The request was made by lawyers for two 46th Assembly District candidates who feared that the delay may have cost them crucial votes. There were 15 candidates running for the Assembly seat vacated by Mike Roos.

Sohigian ruled that the lawyers for candidates T.S. Chung and John Emerson failed to provide concrete evidence that anyone failed to vote as a result of the delay.

About 30 of the city’s 2,730 precincts had “some sort of problem” Tuesday related to either late opening or lack of supplies for voters, according to Frank Martinez, the head of the city clerk’s election division. The problems were no greater than usual, he said.

The 9th District race between Walters, 60, and Gay, 38, a deputy to the late Councilman Lindsay, focused on Lindsay’s record and allegations that the councilman and his staff neglected South-Central neighborhoods while pushing development in the downtown business area.

In interviews at the polls on Tuesday, Lindsay’s name was mentioned a dozen times for every time a voter mentioned Gay or Walters.

Several people mentioned that they were voting for Gay because local pastors had told them to do so. Gay actively courted ministers in the district and locked up the endorsements of dozens before Walters even decided to enter the race.

The contest also featured mud-slinging between Gay and Walters. Gay attacked Walters because of reports that top aides in the mayor’s office held briefing sessions for her and used city equipment and computers to aid her campaign. Bradley reprimanded six aides, including Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani, and the Los Angeles Police Department opened a criminal investigation into the matter.

In repeated campaign appearances, Gay cited the assistance from Bradley’s office as evidence that Walters knows little about the issues facing the 9th District. Walters moved into the 9th District last January, about two weeks after Lindsay died.

Walters returned the fire, calling for an investigation of a $10,000 trip Gay took to Hong Kong, Paris and China in 1987 that was paid for by Hong Kong businessman Howard Yeung, who in 1986 drew up plans for a huge office, mart and hotel complex in the 9th District.

In the 8th District, where Councilman Robert Farrell decided to step down after 17 years, Ridley-Thomas, 36, on leave as director of the Los Angeles office of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, faced Wright, 38, a political consultant.

Both Ridley-Thomas and Wright focused on the issue of improving basic city services for the 8th District. Each has called for the removal of Police Chief Daryl F. Gates in the aftermath of the police beating of Rodney G. King, but Ridley-Thomas has been more visible on the issue, appearing at press conferences for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which has joined in a lawsuit to place Gates on administrative leave.

In the closing days of the campaign, each also began vigorous attacks on the other. Ridley-Thomas raised the issue of a 1985 no-contest plea by Wright to a misdemeanor election fraud charge stemming from a 1985 City Council campaign in Compton. Wright responded with a stepped-up attack on Ridley-Thomas for his close connections to Farrell, who endorsed Ridley-Thomas.

In the 6th District, the development issue that cost Galanter, 50, an outright victory in the April primary followed her into the runoff contest with Mary Lee Gray, 50, a senior deputy to County Supervisor Deane Dana.

Gray attacked Galanter for drifting too far from the anti-growth platform that brought her an upset victory four years ago over then-Council President Pat Russell. The attacks bolstered campaign reports that showed many of the city’s major developers and lobbyists had switched positions on Galanter and launched major fund-raising efforts for her.

Galanter countercharged that Gray, a deputy to the conservative Dana, is herself too pro-development and anti-environment.

Several voters interviewed in the Crenshaw area said they were not excited by either candidate and a number said they cast their vote on the basis of slate mailers. In one case, Gray, a registered Republican, paid to have her name placed on a mailer called “The California Democrat,” which featured mostly Democratic candidates.

Despite campaign assertions that Galanter was inattentive to the Crenshaw area, several voters said they “wanted to give her another chance.” They cited the construction of a Lucky supermarket, which Galanter supported.

Times staff writers Sam Enriquez, Marc Lacey, John H. Lee, John L. Mitchell, James Rainey, George Ramos and John Schwada contributed to this story.