Bernardi’s Condition Improves

Former Los Angeles City Councilman Ernani Bernardi’s condition was upgraded from serious to satisfactory Monday after he collapsed during Easter services, authorities said.

The ailing 82-year-old musician-turned-politician remained at Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills.

“His condition has improved,” said a hospital spokeswoman. She said the former councilman, who represented the east San Fernando Valley, and his family requested that no additional information be released.

Msgr. Francis Weber of San Fernando Mission, where Bernardi attended Easter services, said he visited him Sunday night. “He was very upbeat,” Weber said.

In February, Bernardi was admitted to a Panorama City hospital for treatment of an illness, which friends and former colleagues said then was an unspecified prostate problem. While he was in the hospital, Bernardi suffered a heart attack and was treated in the cardiac-care unit.

In earlier interviews with The Times, former colleagues and friends said Bernardi appeared sickly since October, when his wife of 60 years, Lucille, died after a bout with Alzheimer’s disease.

Bernardi, the longest-serving council member, has been the city’s fiercest opponent of community redevelopment programs, which he views as wasteful.

The Community Redevelopment Agency in February paid $5,000 in fees to give Bernardi a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, according to a CRA spokeswoman, even though it was the kind of project Bernardi had persistently opposed. (In the 1930s, he played the alto saxophone for such Big Band leaders as Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and Bob Crosby before turning to politics.)

Bernardi was elected to the City Council in 1960 and retired last June.