LOCAL ELECTIONS / 7TH COUNCIL DISTRICT : Runoff Is Likely in Mostly Latino Area

At the start of the multi-candidate scramble to succeed Los Angeles City Councilman Ernani Bernardi several months ago, most political observers agreed that one contender stood squarely at the head of the pack: City Fire Capt. Lyle Hall.

A onetime president of the city firefighters union, Hall forced Bernardi into a runoff during a 1989 race. Backed heavily by organized labor, the affable, gentle-voiced Hall ran a spirited campaign but lost.

When Bernardi pledged to step down this year, Hall was said to be in the best position to take over his northeast San Fernando Valley seat. Bernardi, 81, has since jumped into the mayoral race.

But with just a week remaining until Tuesday’s primary election, some analysts say Hall’s political star has dropped while those of several other contenders have risen in the 7th Council District, a heavily Latino enclave that stretches from the supermercados of Pacoima to the horse lots of Sun Valley.

Most observers agree that with seven candidates on the ballot, a June 8 runoff between the two top vote-getters is almost certain, and some still say that Hall is one of the runoff contenders.

But others say that with other candidates coming on strong, he may be eliminated in the primary.

Hall’s campaign fund raising has been sluggish, and he nearly lost a coveted organized labor endorsement when rivals lobbied vigorously against him.

Hall also is an Anglo in a district that some argue would be best represented by a Latino, given its 70% Latino population. The district’s boundaries were redrawn last year to boost a Latino’s odds of winning, and Latino political strategists see the race as the chance to elect the San Fernando Valley’s first Latino councilman.

But the reapportionment resulted in a political paradox: Although the district’s population is overwhelmingly Latino, Anglos comprise its biggest voting bloc, with 48% of registered voters. Latinos make up only 31% of voters, and African-Americans about 20%.

Those political demographics produced a rainbow of serious candidates: three Anglos, three Latinos and one African-American.

Besides Hall, they are: Richard Alarcon, a former aide to Mayor Tom Bradley; LeRoy Chase, director of the Pacoima-based Boys & Girls Club of San Fernando Valley; Al Dib, a former produce wholesaler and the only Republican in the officially nonpartisan race; Anne Finn, a businesswoman and widow of Councilman Howard Finn, and Raymond Magana, a former Bernardi deputy.

Also on the ballot is Henry Villafana, an elementary schoolteacher and political unknown.

The large Anglo vote, analysts say, may favor Hall and the two other Anglo candidates, Dib and Finn.

Dib, who is backed by Councilman Hal Bernson, has pitched himself largely at Republicans, touting his endorsement by GOP officials in mail brochures. Because GOP voters make up 25% of the district’s voters, their support alone may be enough to propel Dib into the runoff, observers say.

Finn, whose late husband once represented much of the district, was the leading fund-raiser in recent campaign finance statements, although about half of her war chest comes from loans from her own pocket. At 77, she is an energetic woman who has spent recent days telephoning voters.

Chase, the respected head of the Boys & Girls Club, is a community fixture who analysts say could win a runoff berth if he can capture most of the African-American vote.

Alarcon has campaigned largely on his extensive ties to the district, where he grew up. Magana, a politically savvy Sylmar attorney, has significant labor union backing as well as an endorsement from conservative Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich.

But Magana’s campaign was shaken last week by revelations that he falsely stated in a 1978 voter registration affidavit that he was born in California, when he is a native of Mexico.

Magana, 37, said he did so only because he came to Los Angeles at age 10, after his mother’s death, and was raised by two older sisters who told him he was U.S.-born to protect him from discrimination and harassment as an immigrant from Mexico.

Rivals, however, scoffed at that explanation as nonsensical.

“A 10-year-old not only knows what country he was born in, he knows what state he was born in, what city he was born in, and probably what hospital he was born in,” said Harvey Englander, Dib’s campaign consultant.

But Dib, too, has suffered his share of political embarrassment.

He incurred the wrath of many Latinos in February when he was quoted as saying that he “can tell by their faces” whether Latinos are U.S. citizens. Earlier this month, he was sued by a former campaign fund-raiser, who charged that Dib refused to pay him $15,000 in fees and commissions.

Dib said the debt was far less, and dismissed the lawsuit as a business dispute.

Although all the candidates insist that ethnicity plays no role in the campaign, racial undercurrents have rippled through it.

After Dib’s Latino comment, several Latino candidates privately conferred over how to respond to it, including a possible public lambasting of Dib.

But they decided to do nothing as a group. Instead, they asked a local chapter of the Mexican American Political Assn. to hold a news conference condemning Dib. That never happened.

The incident, observers say, underscores the extent to which the Latino candidates understand how much they need Anglo crossover votes to win. The Latinos said nothing against Dib, analysts say, because they did not want to risk offending Anglos by appearing to gang up on him along ethnic lines.

The Latino contenders also tip-toed around another racially charged issue: the proposed breakup of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Responding to a Times questionnaire, all three Anglo candidates said they favored the split. But the three Latinos initially took no position. Magana later changed his response to say he supported a breakup, which was strongly supported by Anglos in a recent Times Poll.

Some observers said the reluctance of the Latino candidates to take a position was an attempt to walk a political tightrope between Anglos and Latinos. In the Times Poll, only 35% of Latinos citywide favored a separate Valley school district.

“You cannot outright be a pro-Latino candidate because you don’t have the base to do that,” said Arturo Vargas, a vice president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

With candidates struggling to raise campaign funds in a low-income district racked by recession, the race has been a low-intensity affair. Several candidates have spent much of their time burning shoe leather in order to meet voters.

The contenders generally agree that crime and joblessness are the two main issues in the district. But they have advanced few innovative ideas for dealing with either.

One topic that has been repeatedly discussed is what to do with the shuttered General Motors assembly plant in Panorama City. Most candidates want it reopened and used to produce mass transit vehicles. But they have cited few specifics as to how they would do that.