Bernardi Continues His Long Solo in City Politics : Campaign: Councilman’s age and role as a naysayer have some wondering how effective he could be as mayor.

He is older than City Hall itself.

So it was quite a surprise to most political observers when Ernani Bernardi, the crusty 81-year-old dean of the Los Angeles City Council, jumped into the fast-paced mayoral derby.

Campaigning at voter forums, Bernardi frequently anticipates--and seeks to overcome--the major doubt surrounding his candidacy.

“Want to ask about my age?” he snaps.

Then, referring to his foes in the race, he adds: “Listen, I got more guts and more gumption than all these other deadheads put together.”

In a recent interview, the 32-year council veteran said his doctor has declared him physically fit for the demands of the mayor’s office. And gerontologists say that many people in their 80s and 90s perform well in important jobs.

Dr. Gene Cohen, acting director of the National Institute on Aging, said: “You have to be very careful about generalizing (about the elderly) because it is a group that ranges from being in the nursing home to on the Supreme Court.”

Still, reflecting on the demands of the city’s top elective post, Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani said: “It’s got to be tough for someone in his 80s to be contemplating this kind of job.”

As it is, Bernardi has been spending less time at City Hall in recent months, often arriving after 10 a.m. and leaving before 5 p.m. to care for his ailing wife. Council President John Ferraro said his colleague--who wears headphones at meetings because of hearing problems--has “slowed down a bit.”

But, Ferraro added, when an issue piques Bernardi’s interest, the council’s senior member jumps to his feet to speak “with the vigor he’s always had.”

Short, bald, bespectacled and possessing a puckish sense of humor, Bernardi is best known as the naysayer of City Hall--habitually voting against projects he considers wasteful, tinged with political cronyism or overly bureaucratic.

“I lose sleep every now and then, but it is over a ‘yes’ vote I cast more often than a ‘no’ vote,” he said.

His efforts have not gone unappreciated. “He’s brought a lot of things to the attention of the council” that have deserved more careful analysis, said Ferraro. “When he votes ‘yes,’ he’s got to feel it’s a ‘yes’ vote, not just because he’s giving somebody a vote.”

But this characteristic causes some to wonder how effective he could be as mayor. “Ernie is so much his own man that I think it would be difficult for him to line up the eight votes he would need to implement policies,” said Councilwoman Ruth Galanter.

Bernardi has been on the short end of 14-1 roll calls on several major issues. He voted “no” on building the Metro Rail subway, “no” on establishing the downtown redevelopment project, “no” on declaring Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a city holiday. (He said that he was not opposed to recognizing the civil rights leader, but at the cost of giving city workers another day off.)

After surviving a tough reelection campaign in 1989, the Van Nuys resident announced that this would be his last council term. Then, as the filing deadline approached this year, he jumped into the mayoral race. It gave him a soapbox on which to crusade one last time for his pet causes. Indeed, he often acts as if instead of having 23 mayoral opponents, he has just one: the Community Redevelopment Agency, which he attacks every chance he gets.

Bernardi, who recently broke a kneecap after slipping on wet pavement, has been limping along with a long-shot campaign that is being run the same, unconventional way he has conducted the rest of his political life.

While his rivals stump with aides by their sides, Bernardi travels alone. He refuses to hire a professional strategist. He declines makeup for televised debates. He has yet to stage a fund-raiser. When asked about his campaign budget, he pulls out of his pocket a roll of stamps. They are used to send out his mailer--a photocopied, four-page typewritten statement.

He acknowledges the long odds against him, giving himself only “an outside chance” of being elected.

A onetime Big Band saxophonist, Bernardi was first elected to the council in 1961, before then-actor Ronald Reagan and then-police Lt. Tom Bradley began their political careers. His years on the council have set a record that is not likely to be broken in this era of term limits--a movement that Bernardi, ironically, favors.

He is contrary and unpredictable, once abruptly cutting off a news conference by loudly humming “Stars and Stripes Forever.”

He is a loner given to berating his colleagues in public and unwilling to cut political deals in private. Consequently, he has rarely been a political force.

Nonetheless, he has had his share of victories.

He authored the 1985 law limiting political donations in municipal elections. He succeeded only after bypassing his colleagues--who balked at enacting campaign reforms--and enlisting the support of the League of Women Voters and a ragtag group made up mostly of retirees to qualify an initiative for the ballot.

He led successful campaigns to limit city pensions and wages. Along with Councilman Joel Wachs, he championed the city’s rent control law. Bernardi also sponsored the first law of its kind in a big city requiring lobbyists to disclose their activities at City Hall.

And as the council’s leading critic of the CRA, he successfully sued to place a $750-million cap on its spending for downtown renewal.

But while Bernardi relishes playing the role of political maverick, he accepts campaign contributions from many of the special interests he finds so distasteful--although he has not gotten much in this campaign, raising about $2,900 through March 6.

Political donors “don’t dictate to me how I vote,” he said.

Among his harshest critics are union leaders. “He can sometimes be a shrill, cantankerous little guy. . . a knee-jerk negative vote for no good reason at all,” one said.

Bernardi once cast the only vote against a lighthearted proposal at a Christmas Eve council meeting to allow reindeer-drawn sleighs to land on rooftops. “I don’t think we ought to play jokes with ordinances,” he harrumphed.

But this was the same man who one Christmas unlocked the City Hall kitchen to personally cook beans for the homeless.

The son of Italian immigrants, Bernardi was born in the living quarters of a small grocery store his family owned in Standard, Ill. His mother died giving birth to him, and he was raised by his grandmother and father, who taught him how to play the saxophone.

Performing under the name Noni Bernardi, he was a smooth-toned lead alto sax player during the 1930s with such Big Band leaders as Benny Goodman, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey and Bob Crosby.

He wrote the arrangements for Tommy Dorsey’s recording of “I’m Getting Sentimental Over You” and Goodman’s popular “And the Angels Sing.” He came to California in 1940 with Kay Kyser’s “Kollege of Musical Knowledge,” a group that entertained audiences with a potpourri of music and gags.

In the late ‘40s, Bernardi gave up the big bands for a career as a custom home builder. He began his third career with his election to the council.

Bernardi acknowledges that he is a long-shot candidate.

A Times poll last month showed Bernardi with support from just 2% of respondents surveyed, putting him far behind front-runner and fellow Councilman Michael Woo, who had 20%. But Bernardi hopes that with 24 candidates in the race, he can draw enough votes from his traditional supporters of Valley senior citizens and tax critics to squeak into a runoff election.

Bernardi’s main campaign issue has been to push for a council takeover of the CRA, which is governed by a seven-member board that answers to the mayor.

“Instead of removing blight, the CRA has used property taxes to subsidize construction of luxurious high-rise buildings in downtown Los Angeles,” he said.

But Fabiani said that if the downtown projects are discontinued, low-cost housing and homeless programs funded by redevelopment would be jeopardized.

Bernardi also has advocated eliminating the city Board of Public Works and privatizing city garbage collection.

A majority of the City Council has rejected both proposals. Supporters of the public works board have argued that it serves as an ombudsman between residents and a huge city bureaucracy. Contracting out trash collection was defeated after opposition from labor unions fearful of layoffs of city sanitation workers--especially African-Americans and Latinos.

Bernardi opposes a measure on the April 20 ballot to raise property taxes to hire 1,000 police officers. A cheaper alternative, he said, would be to set aside more money to pay overtime to current officers.

Fabiani said Bernardi’s plan will not work. “Simply paying more overtime to existing officers is not the solution,” he said. “You can only stretch those officers so far.”

Bernardi has no plans to play the saxophone during the campaign, even though it has become a symbol of success for another politician--Bill Clinton.

“I don’t have the stamina,” Bernardi said. “It’s much more difficult for me to play the saxophone than to be mayor of Los Angeles.”

Profiles of the 11 major candidates for mayor of Los Angeles will run in order of appearance on the ballot. Next: Richard Riordan.

Bernardi, Patsaouras, Woo Ads

Los Angeles mayoral candidates Ernani Bernardi, Nick Patsaouras and Michael Woo air TV ads beginning today.

THE BERNARDI AD: The veteran councilman’s first foray into TV advertising is a black and white commercial that airs on cable mostly in anti-tax San Fernando Valley neighborhoods. The ad says the Community Redevelopment Agency has “thrown away $750 million overbuilding downtown. Now they want $7 billion more. . . . We don’t need another empty high-rise. We need more police.”

THE ANALYSIS: The ad will help Bernardi raise his profile in the crowded race. Bernardi opposes lifting the $750-million cap on tax revenues that the CRA can receive from downtown renewal. Supporters of lifting the limit say it is necessary to fund affordable housing, social services and economic development programs in impoverished neighborhoods.

THE PATSAOURAS AD: A woman on the street comes on the screen saying, “I read it.” A man then says, “So did I.” Then several other people say this about Patsaouras’ plan for revitalizing Los Angeles: “It will mean more jobs.” “Safe streets.” “A modern transportation system.”

THE ANALYSIS: The 30-second spot creates the impression that everyone in town is talking about Patsaouras and his plan. The ad seeks to reinforce Patsaouras’ campaign theme that he is the candidate who has developed a detailed plan to revitalize the city. No details are offered, however.

THE WOO AD: Councilman Woo and Police Chief Willie L. Williams are pictured together standing in front of a police car. Then standing alone, Woo says: “I took a lot of heat when I stood up to (former police chief) Daryl Gates, but we needed a change. . . . As mayor, I’ll put 1,000 more police on the street.”

THE ANALYSIS: Williams will not endorse any mayoral candidate, but Woo nonetheless benefits from being pictured with the popular chief. Woo offers no specifics on his pledge to put 1,000 more police on the street beyond his previous support of a proposed police tax on the April ballot.

Profile: Ernani Bernardi

Born: Oct. 29, 1911.

Residence: Van Nuys.

Career highlights: Jazz musician, 1927-1947; building contractor, 1947-1961: city councilman, 1961 to present.

Interests: City government, music.

Family: Married, four children.

Quote: “I lose sleep every now and then, but it is over a ‘yes’ vote I cast more often than a ‘no’ vote.”