Large Field of Candidates File for City Council Seats : Election: Six Latinos, a record number, will campaign for Ernani Bernardi's East Valley seat. Joy Picus faces eight challengers in the West Valley.

By JACK CHEEVERS and JOHN SCHWADA

Jan. 26, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

With veteran City Councilman Ernani Bernardi running for mayor of Los Angeles, a dozen would-be successors--including a record number of Latinos--filed papers by Monday’s deadline to campaign for his east San Fernando Valley seat.

In the West Valley, meanwhile, incumbent Council woman Joy Picus will face eight opponents--the most since she first won the office in 1977--including one who has outstripped her in fund raising.

The race to succeed the 81-year-old Bernardi promises to be a test of whether a Latino can capture a district designed to increase Latinos’ chances of victory but in which the biggest single bloc of voters is Anglo.

The boundaries of Bernardi’s 7th District were redrawn by the City Council last summer after lobbying by Latino activists. The district now includes Pacoima, Mission Hills and Sun Valley and parts of Sylmar, Arleta, Van Nuys, Lake View Terrace, Panorama City, North Hollywood and North Hills.

Although its population is 70% Latino, only 31% of registered voters in the district are Latino. Anglos comprise 48% of registered voters and African-Americans 19%. Of the 12 candidates, six are Latino.

Those numbers have led to speculation that the large number of Latino candidates will fragment the Latino vote and that an Anglo will win.

Jaime Regalado, director of the Edmund G. (Pat) Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State University-Los Angeles, said he believes all of the Latino candidates will be eliminated in the April primary election.

That would leave two Anglo candidates--city Fire Capt. Lyle Hall and former produce wholesaler Al Dib--to face each other in the June runoff, he said.

Hall placed second to Bernardi in the 1989 election and is expected to get strong support from organized labor this year. Dib, who ran third in 1989, is getting fund-raising help from City Councilman Hal Bernson, a fellow conservative Republican and longtime friend.

“None of the Latino candidates jumps out with their name identification,” said Regalado. “Most Latino activists have seen this to be a Latino growth district,” he said, meaning a Latino will not win this year, but will in the near future after Latino voter registration increases.

But some Latino candidates disagree.

Raymond Magana, a Sylmar attorney and former Bernardi deputy, said Latinos have won several elections recently in districts where they are not a majority of registered voters. He cited last year’s election of Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles) in a district where Latinos represent only 35% of registered voters.

Magana said he thinks he will receive a substantial number of “crossover” votes from non-Latinos and that other Latino candidates will also reach out beyond their own ethnic community for votes.

“People see the need for change,” he said. “They’re going to vote for the person they think best represents . . . the district, be it whomever.”

The other candidates who filed for the 7th District seat by Monday are:

Richard Alarcon, Mayor Tom Bradley’s Valley liaison; Rose Castaneda, an aide to Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City); LeRoy Chase Jr., director of the Boys & Girls Club of San Fernando Valley; Ann Finn, widow of former Councilman Howard Finn; Jose P. Galvan, a librarian and longtime Latino activist; Sharon L. Humphrey-Peterson, a hairdresser; Sandra Lynn Hubbard, a Lake View Terrace publishing worker; Irene Tovar, a longtime Latino activist; and Henry Reyes Villafana, a public school teacher.

Whatever the race’s outcome, it has generated the largest field of Latino contenders in recent memory. Only two Latinos campaigned against Bernardi in 1989, and none in previous elections going back to 1973.

In Picus’ Council District 3, which encompasses the southwest Valley, the incumbent is facing the largest field of candidates ever to challenge her as she seeks a fifth term.

All told, eight candidates are gunning for Picus’ job, including Laura N. Chick, who formerly worked as a Picus field deputy. In reelection bids in 1985 and 1989, Picus faced only five challengers.

Chick, wife of Robert Chick, president of the city’s Airport Commission, has outstripped Picus in raising campaign money. She was the first candidate in the race to report to city ethics officials that she had hit a $50,000 fund-raising benchmark. Chick recently moved to Tarzana from Sherman Oaks in order to qualify as a District 3 resident.

In the past years, Picus encouraged potential council challengers by publicly stating that she was considering running for Congress, the county Board of Supervisors or mayor. In addition, her vocal opposition to development has not endeared her to several powerful Warner Center developers and property owners.

Also running for Picus’ seat is Robert J. Gross, a former president of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization, who until last year was a Picus ally in fighting the controversial Warner Ridge project in Woodland Hills.

Other Picus challengers are:

Dennis P. Zine, a well-known Los Angeles Police Department sergeant; Glenn Bailey, of Encino, a perennial candidate and member of the Topanga-Las Virgenes Resource Conservation District board of directors; Morton S. Diamond, a Canoga Park man who ran against Picus in 1989 when Diamond was a hotdog vendor; Michael McGarrity, of Woodland Hills, who is in the printing business; David M. Moles, of Woodland Hills, a real estate salesman; and Charles D. Nixon III, of Woodland Hills, who is in real estate sales and construction.

Gross and Chick maintain that Picus has been an ineffectual lawmaker, and they cite Warner Ridge as proof.

Earlier this year, the city of Los Angeles’ efforts to block the Warner Ridge project--led by Picus--suffered a series of courtroom defeats that finally forced the city to grant the developer the right to build a large-scale commercial-condominium project on the 21.5-acre site.

Picus has denied that her handling of Warner Ridge was a fiasco. With this case, she proved herself ready “to go to the mat” to fight for her community, she has said. The cause was not lost at City Hall but in the courts, she has reminded critics.

In Council District 11, which covers an area from the Ventura Freeway through Encino and Pacific Palisades to Mar Vista, incumbent Councilman Marvin Braude is facing five opponents. They are:

Attorney Daniel W. Pritikin of Mar Vista; Jerry Reid Douglas of Woodland Hills, a computer programmer and conservation district director; John B. Handal II, owner of a Brentwood restaurant; Patrick Michael Blackburn, a salesman; and Mary Lou Holte, who has identified herself as a crime control advocate.

In District 5, which includes much of the Westside and parts of the central and East Valley, incumbent Zev Yaroslavsky faces three challengers: Laura Lake, a UCLA urban planning professor who lives in Westwood; Robert Neil Marcus, a Sherman Oaks attorney and Michael Loren Rosenberg, a city building inspector from North Hollywood.

MAYORAL CANDIDATE FILINGS: B1

Candidate Filings Los Angeles City Council

DISTRICT 3 (West Hills, Can- oga Park, Winnetka, Woodland Hills, Reseda, Van Nuys, Tarzana and Encino) Joy Picus, Woodland Hills*

Glenn Christopher Trujillo Bailey, Encino

Laura Newman Chick,

Tarzana

Morton S. Diamond, Canoga Park

Robert J. Gross, Woodland Hills

David M. Moles, Woodland Hills

Michael McGarrity, Woodland Hills

Charles D. Nixon III, Woodland Hills

Dennis P. Zine, West Hills