Alarcon, Hall Lead; Picus Forced Into Runoff : 7th District: Los Angeles fire captain and former mayoral aide are the top vote-getters among seven in the race to succeed City Councilman Ernani Bernardi.

With more than three-quarters of the votes counted, Fire Capt. Lyle Hall and former mayoral aide Richard Alarcon emerged as the leaders Tuesday in the crowded race to succeed Los Angeles City Councilman Ernani Bernardi, setting up a runoff battle.

Alarcon, if he wins the runoff for the northeastern San Fernando Valley seat, would be the first Latino council member from the Valley.

Hall, who forced Bernardi into a runoff in a 1989 contest, led the seven-candidate pack.

“We’re pleased to be the leader and look forward to a spirited campaign. We’re going to deliver services that haven’t been delivered to the Valley in the past,” said Hall, who left a party at his Sun Valley headquarters to rush to City Hall so he could get vote results faster.

The runoff for the 7th District seat will be held June 8.

Hall’s campaign manager, Bob Stiens, attributed Hall’s lead to the large number of voters who remembered his candidacy four years ago.

“People would say, ‘Oh yeah, the firefighter,’ ” he said.

Alarcon noted his role as a Latino standard-bearer in the district, which has a predominantly Latino population.

“The political reality, at least in the northeast Valley, has been that the Latino community has never had a candidate before that they believed could really represent them. I hope I’m that guy,” he said as 75 supporters danced, ate and drank at his headquarters a few blocks from Hall’s.

Hall, Alarcon and other candidates spent Election Day in last-minute appeals to voters, telephoning and walking door-to-door in muggy heat. Bernardi, 81, is stepping down this year from the council where he has served since John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as President.

Bernardi’s seat represents a working-class area that stretches from Van Nuys to Sylmar. Its boundaries were redrawn last year by the City Council with an eye toward improving a Latino’s chances of winning.

With the city’s attention riveted on the Rodney G. King civil rights trial for weeks, the campaign was a low-intensity affair marked by anemic fund raising and almost no mudslinging. But one political consultant said that “will change dramatically” in the runoff.

“Candidates are going to be scrambling over each other’s backs to make it to the finish line,” said Harvey Englander, top adviser to candidate Al Dib.

Besides Hall and Alarcon, a onetime aide to Mayor Tom Bradley, the contenders in the primary election were: LeRoy Chase, longtime director of the Boys & Girls Club of the San Fernando Valley; Dib, a former produce wholesaler; Anne Finn, a businesswoman and widow of Councilman Howard Finn, former Bernardi deputy Raymond J. Magana, and Henry R. Villafana, a schoolteacher and political greenhorn.

Also on the ballot was Rose Casteneda, a top aide to Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City). She withdrew from the race too late for her name to be deleted.

Throughout the contest, Magana led the pack in fund raising. He drew significant support from labor unions, including the United Auto Workers local that represented the closed Van Nuys General Motors assembly plant.

How to resuscitate the vast GM plant and attract new businesses to the unemployment-racked district were frequent topics of debate among candidates. Another was how to control crime. The district includes Blythe Street, one of the city’s most notorious drug hot spots until a police crackdown last fall.

Although 70% of those who live in the district are Latino, the contenders were a racial rainbow--three Latinos, three Anglos, one African-American--and they pitched themselves to voters largely along ethnic lines.

Magana and Alarcon, for instance, campaigned heavily among Latinos, while Chase aimed at blacks.

Magana, a moderate Democrat, touted his endorsement by county Supervisor Mike Antonovich, a conservative Republican, and his experience as a deputy to Bernardi.

Dib, the lone Republican in the race, mailed campaign brochures to fellow GOP members, who make up 25% of registered voters in the district. He also stressed his involvement in a Sylmar Neighborhood Watch group.

Hall sought to portray himself as a guardian of public safety, emphasizing his 31 years as a firefighter and 11 years as a police reservist.

“He has put his life on the line for us,” proclaimed one of his campaign brochures.

Hall also received significant labor support, especially from fellow firefighters. Firefighter unions as far away as Hawaii gave him campaign money. Hall also has served as president of the Los Angeles firefighters union and as its City Hall lobbyist.

In his battle with Bernardi four years ago, Hall easily won the endorsement of the influential Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. But this year, he almost lost it to a concerted lobbying effort by Alarcon, Casteneda and Magana.

The three Latinos argued that a Latino should represent the district and that Hall, an Anglo, should not automatically get labor’s nod. They succeeded in persuading members of the federation’s political arm not to endorse Hall. But rank-and-file unionists later overturned that decision, throwing their weight behind Hall after all.

Magana’s campaign was buffeted by revelations that he falsely stated his birthplace as California on a 1978 voter registration affidavit. Magana explained that he had left his real birthplace--the state of Jalisco in Mexico--after his mother died when he was 10. His sisters raised him in Los Angeles, telling him he was U.S.-born to protect him from harassment, he said.

Alarcon, who battled Magana for Latino votes, tried to use the controversy against Magana. In a hastily produced brochure sent to Latino voters, Alarcon touted his “30 years of honest service to our community” and reprinted newspaper headlines about Magana’s registration.

Alarcon repeatedly told voters about his deep roots in the district, where he grew up and taught school before going to work for Bradley in 1989. In a recent letter to voters, his mother, Olga, recalled how her son won an award for sportsmanship as a local Little Leaguer.

Alarcon was endorsed by Bradley, but was careful in his use of the plug. It was not until the final days of the race that he mentioned the mayor’s endorsement in a mailing targeted at black voters in Pacoima.

Chase campaigned heavily on his 25-year tenure as head of the Boys & Girls Club, saying the experience gave him valuable management and fund-raising skills.

Finn said she was running “in the tradition of my late husband” and promised to fight for more city services for the 7th District.

Times staff writers Tracey Kaplan and David Colker contributed to this story.

Proposition 1: Tax for 1,000 new police officers appears headed for defeat. Other council Races: Hernandez, Yaroslavsky and Braude are heading for reelection. Results and Related Stories: A 17,18,19.