Settlement Reached in Campaign Sign Lawsuit : Politics: Alan D. Fox was accused of damaging the electoral chances of Walter Prince and Alan Hecht during 1991 City Council primary.

A confidential settlement was reached Monday in a lawsuit that sought $297,000 in damages against a Northridge tire store owner accused of stealing the campaign signs of two candidates in a 1991 Los Angeles City Council election.

Under the terms of the agreement, the parties were barred from disclosing the amount of damages awarded, said Walter Prince, a plaintiff and one of five candidates who tried to unseat Councilman Hal Bernson in the bitter political contest.

Prince and Alan Hecht, another candidate, had sued Alan D. Fox and Ram Tire Co., a company owned by Fox, for $297,000, alleging that the Northridge man was involved in the removal and destruction of hundreds of their campaign signs in March, 1991.

“I call it a victory for the fight against political vandalism,” Prince said of Monday’s settlement. “It was not a slap on the wrist. It was sufficient that I’m sure Fox wishes he never got involved.”

In pretrial depositions, both Prince and Hecht testified that Fox had strong ties to Bernson, who was not named in the lawsuit. The councilman and Fox have repeatedly refused to comment on the case.

Steve Press, an attorney for Fox, refused to comment Monday.

Prince, who finished third in the 1991 primary election, said the settlement proceeds will be paid to his and Hecht’s campaign committees. Prince added that he planned to return the money to his campaign contributors.

The pair’s lawsuit accused Fox of violating their First Amendment rights by removing the signs and damaging their viability as candidates. “It was nearly my entire campaign,” Prince said. “After the signs were stolen, people asked me why I had dropped out of the race. It was very damaging.”

Settlement talks were conducted under the auspices of Superior Court Judge Ernest Hiroshige in Los Angeles.

Fox was implicated in the incident by a retired Cal State Northridge professor and his wife, who surprised two men tearing down campaign signs at a Northridge supermarket on March 29, 1991.

The truck the two were driving was traced to Fox, and Mark Lit, the retired professor, subsequently identified Fox as the man he saw in the truck.

A third plaintiff in the lawsuit was Cogs, the state’s largest political sign company. A former Cogs executive has said his firm hoped that the case would deter political vandalism, often a problem in campaigns.

According to Hecht’s sworn deposition, Fox and Bernson belonged to the same fellowship group at the Temple Ramat Zion in Northridge. Hecht, who is Jewish, speculated in his testimony that belonging to the same havurah meant that Fox and Bernson had almost a brother-like relationship. A havurah is an extended family group.

In 1988, Bernson overrode the objections of city officials and granted Fox zoning approvals that enabled him to build an auto-repair facility on Roscoe Boulevard.

Bernson’s chief of staff has acknowledged that Fox and Bernson were friends and belonged to the same temple.