12TH DISTRICT : Fur Still Flies as Bernson, Korenstein Attack Each Other’s Campaign Tactics

Post-campaign bitterness between Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson and challenger Julie Korenstein boiled over in charges of race-baiting and political dirty tricks Wednesday after Bernson’s narrow victory in Tuesday’s runoff election.

Bernson defeated Korenstein, a Los Angeles school board member, by only 746 votes out of more than 32,000 cast to win his fourth term representing the 12th Council District in the northwest San Fernando Valley. The turnout was 31% of those eligible, the highest voter participation of any of the five council races on Tuesday’s ballot.

Although about 12,000 absentee votes remained to be counted citywide Wednesday, Korenstein conceded defeat after a vitriolic campaign in which Bernson accused her of being too liberal and out of step with voters in the largely affluent, moderate-to-conservative district.

The election did not put an end to the candidates’ charges. Despite his victory, Bernson said he intends to press for an investigation of an independent campaign against him by the owners of the Sunshine Canyon dump--longtime political foes. Korenstein’s campaign accused the councilman of winning by appealing to racial prejudice.

Korenstein’s campaign manager, Parke Skelton, charged that Bernson exploited racial tensions surrounding the Rodney G. King beating by casting himself as an ally of the white law-and-order Establishment while linking Korenstein to liberal African-American politicians.

“Bernson was looking for a Willie Horton, and Rodney King gave him the opportunity to polarize the district on racial lines,” Skelton said.

Horton is an African-American man who escaped from a Massachusetts prison while on furlough and raped a white woman during the administration of former Gov. Michael Dukakis. The incident was used in a key political advertisement in George Bush’s 1988 presidential campaign against Dukakis, the Democratic nominee, prompting Democrats’ charges of racism and negative campaigning.

Skelton said that during the council campaign, Bernson sought to link himself to Police Chief Daryl F. Gates and former President Ronald Reagan in order to curry favor with conservative, law-and-order voters. Gates gave Bernson a strong endorsement and made a last-minute campaign appearance on his behalf.

At the same time, Skelton said, the councilman stressed Korenstein’s onetime backing of the Rev. Jesse Jackson and her call for Gates to resign in the wake of the King beating, a position shared by Mayor Tom Bradley.

“He himself said, ‘This campaign is between Bernson and Korenstein, between Ronald Reagan and Jesse Jackson and between Gates and Bradley,’ ” Skelton said of the councilman. “There’s a common theme in that comparison, and the common theme is an attempt to polarize . . . on race.”

Bernson hoped to frame the choice for 12th District voters as, “Are you on the side of black criminals or are you on the side of the police chief?” Skelton said.

Bernson, a conservative Republican, denied trying to inject race into the campaign, saying he was highlighting ideological differences between himself and Korenstein, a liberal Democrat who once belonged to the left-wing Peace and Freedom Party.

“We think people are entitled to know what people’s beliefs are and where they’re coming from,” he said. “They can read anything they want into that.”

Bernson said Gates’ endorsement was a “major, major factor” in his narrow victory in the 12th District, where his polling showed the police chief is highly popular. The district also is the only one in the city where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats.

In brief comments by telephone, Korenstein said “there certainly was some appearance” of race-baiting in Bernson’s campaign but declined to elaborate.

But Korenstein apparently benefited from unhappiness among African-Americans over Gates and the King affair during the campaign’s final days.

Not long after Gates endorsed Bernson, a fund-raising letter was sent on Korenstein’s behalf to members of an association of African-American attorneys, most of whom live outside the 12th District. Korenstein’s campaign collected $2,000 from the attorneys, said John Seely, who participated in the fund-raising effort.

The May 28 letter called for the ouster of Bernson, who was described as “one of the most vociferous members of the council in defending the status quo in police administration since the Rodney King beating.”

Skelton said he was unaware of the contributions.

Bernson said he plans to file a complaint with the state Fair Political Practices Commission and possibly the FBI over independent campaign expenditures against him by Browning-Ferris Industries, which owns the Sunshine Canyon Landfill north of Granada Hills. Bernson is a longtime opponent of the company’s efforts to expand the dump.

BFI reported spending more than $13,000 on an anti-Bernson phone bank and on precinct-walking operations in the last days of the race. The money included $10,000 reported to the city clerk just one day before the election.

Bernson said voters in the district received “tons and tons” of phone calls he believes were made by the Browning-Ferris phone bank operation, and he questioned whether the sums the company reported were enough to pay for such an extensive campaign.

A company spokesman could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

The councilman also charged that Browning-Ferris secretly funneled money to a north Valley citizens group, PRIDE, or Porter Ranch Is Developed Enough, which has vigorously opposed the vast project north of Chatsworth. Korenstein made Bernson’s support of the project the centerpiece of her campaign.

PRIDE leader Don Worsham denied Bernson’s charge, saying the organization is funded entirely by voluntary contributions from its homeowner-members.

“He’s acting very paranoid,” Worsham said of Bernson. “He sees people hiding behind every corner.”

Bernson’s campaign manager, Harvey Englander, said the councilman was able to turn around his flagging campaign after his weak showing in the April 9 city primary election by diverting attention from Porter Ranch and focusing it on Korenstein’s political beliefs and school-board record.

Times staff writer Sam Enriquez contributed to this report.