Bernson Pushes Swiss Banks to Account for WWII Jewish Funds

Will Los Angeles be the straw that breaks the Swiss banks’ back? If Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson has anything to say about it, the answer is yes. Or at least, maybe.

At Bernson’s recommendation, the council today will take up a motion to prod Switzerland’s legendary banks into getting to the bottom of a scandal that has captured worldwide headlines. Over the past several months, Jewish leaders around the globe have accused the banks of hiding billions of dollars invested during World War II by Jews who later perished in the Holocaust.

“The city of Los Angeles has the second-largest Jewish population in the United States,” Bernson said. “We should voice encouragement for the efforts now being put forth by Swiss banks and Jewish organizations to unravel the facts regarding these accounts and return these assets to their rightful owners.”

Not that Bernson’s action is original--or even the most forceful. Officials in two other major U.S. cities, New York and Chicago, have already proposed stronger actions, such as divestment of funds in Swiss banks for waffling on the issue and allegedly stonewalling investigations into their vaults.

And California Treasurer Matt Fong, a likely candidate for U.S. Senate, announced last month that he has stopped investing billions in state funds in Swiss banks until they step up with more information about deposits from Holocaust victims.

So will the L.A. City Council’s “encouragement” be enough to pry anything loose from the Swiss when the state treasurer’s action has hardly succeeded?

“There’s nothing wrong in going on record and sending a message,” said Bernson’s colleague, Councilwoman Laura Chick, who added that she also had contemplated taking some sort of public stand.

“Not that that’s a very strong message,” she said. “It might be interesting to do something stronger, as we have done with companies [with investments] in South Africa when they still had apartheid.”

In the 1980s, the council banned city business with companies that had dealings in South Africa. Neither Chick nor Bernson is aware of any city investments in Swiss banks.

But Bernson does not rule out toughening his stand if the Swiss continue to obfuscate.

“Let’s see what happens,” he said. “I’m perfectly willing and capable of introducing a motion with stronger language. It’s important for people in government to speak out.”

And anyway, his motion, which was seconded by Councilman Mike Feuer, is unlikely to run into opposition on the council, where no fewer than seven of the 15 members, including Bernson himself, are Jewish.

Thinking Big

Now that Gov. Pete Wilson has signed a bill to ease the way for a San Fernando Valley secession, the bill’s biggest proponents are looking to expand their base of support for a Valley breakaway.

Valley Voters Organized Toward Empowerment is launching an effort to expand its 11-member executive committee to 25 and to create a 100-member general board.

The bigger numbers will be needed now that Valley VOTE is taking on the toughest challenge of the secession process: collecting the signatures of 25% of all Valley voters, or about 100,000 people.

If successful, the signature drive will prompt a study by the Local Agency Formation Commission on the feasibility of a secession.

One of the most interesting aspects of the latest effort is that Valley VOTE is now making a pitch to attract Latinos and lower-income residents from the northeast Valley, who have so far been noticeably absent from the program.

Secession leaders will try to appeal to minorities by arguing that a separate Valley municipality will give them a greater voice in the smaller, more manageable city.

The issue of minorities in the secession movement has been a sensitive one for Valley VOTE because the effort has been characterized by some minority leaders as little more than another attempt at “white flight.”

But secession leaders dismiss such charges, pointing out that they have appealed to Valley minorities to join the crusade and will continue to do so.

Valley VOTE’s current 11-member executive committee includes an African American woman and a Latino man.

Help Mates

Speaking of secession, the movement took another odd twist this week when Valley business leaders David Fleming and Bert Boeckmann announced they would form a nonprofit group to study the thorny implications of splitting up the second-largest city in the nation.

You might ask: Isn’t the Local Agency Formation Commission supposed to do that?

In fact, legislation recently signed into law by the governor requires LAFCO to study the feasibility of a secession if backers can collect the signatures of 25% of Valley voters.

The LAFCO study would explain how to divide up public facilities, such as parks, water distribution systems and airports, and would define who pays for bond debt incurred by the city as a whole for such things as earthquake repairs and new street lights.

But Fleming, a Studio City attorney, and Boeckmann, the owner of Galpin Ford, have decided that LAFCO may not be able to handle the job alone.

“If this gets to LAFCO, LAFCO will need all the help it can get,” Fleming said.

In fact, Larry Calemine, executive director of LAFCO, has estimated that the study could cost at least $1 million. But no one is yet sure who will foot the bill.

Fleming and Boeckmann’s group would collect contributions to pay for its separate study. But Fleming notes that neither he nor Boeckmann are taking a position on secession--they are simply providing information about the costs and effects of such a process.

Another possible reason for the separate study is that Valley secessionists may already be anticipating an unfavorable result from LAFCO and hedging their bets.

“We need this so that if the LAFCO study is wrong, we have something we can use to refute it,” said Jeff Brain, co-chair of Valley VOTE, the group that is planning to collect the signatures to call for a LAFCO study.

It’s still unclear when the separate study will be completed.

“We are just beginning to get into it and look at the immensity of the thing,” he said.

Role Reversal

The dizzying, behind-the-scenes negotiations over what size hospital should replace earthquake-damaged County-USC Medical Center offered a glimpse into a little-seen side of conservative County Supervisor Mike Antonovich.

Often, when decisions are to be made at the county level, the board’s liberal majority votes as a bloc, leaving Antonovich standing alone on the right.

The supervisor will often seize those occasions to make a point about a cause in which he believes, even if that point puts him far from the majority’s consensus.

But as talks went down to the wire in the week before the vote on County-USC, it became clear that the majority was not coalescing around a single alternative.

First District Supervisor Gloria Molina wanted the hospital built with 750 beds, yet Valley Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky spoke forcefully against that proposition and was instead leaning toward 500 beds. Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and Don Knabe were undecided, both leaning toward 600 beds. Yet Knabe was also considering a third option: building a shell big enough for 750 beds while staffing only 600. Antonovich was pushing for the smallest hospital of all at 391 beds.

Yet the 5th District supervisor, according to sources, sized up the situation and was prepared to be the third vote in a compromise of 550 to 600 beds.

Even after Yaroslavsky, Burke and Knabe coalesced around a compromise plan of 600 beds, Antonovich stayed on board so that the majority could present a united front.

Antonovich spokesman Cam Currier said that the unusual coalition led to what some might perceive as role switching on the board, as Antonovich appealed for better local outpatient clinics in poor neighborhoods to reduce the hospital’s load, and his liberal colleagues argued for fiscal responsibility.

“You have Mike sounding like a bleeding heart and Zev talking tough on the buck, and somehow the four supervisors came up with a compromise,” Currier said.

Back Talk

In the hearing chambers of Sacramento, Assemblyman Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks) is affectionately known as Bob Hugsberg because of his propensity to throw his arms around his friends, colleagues and even, gasp, Republican lawmakers.

But after this week, he may pick up a new nickname: Hurts-berg.

The freshman lawmaker severely injured his back lifting his luggage as he prepared to board a plane to Sacramento on Monday.

Why not hire someone to do the heavy lifting, Hertzberg was asked. “They don’t pay me enough for that,” he answered.

The muscle pull was so painful that he was unable to leave the plane without assistance and was forced to stay overnight in Sacramento until the pain subsided.

But Hertzberg appears to be a quick healer. He was back in his San Fernando Valley district by Wednesday, meeting with constituents and officials.

No doubt, he will be hugging like his old self in no time.

Quotable:

“In 32 states in this country, my sex life is illegal.”

City Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, who is gay, on a proposal to establish a code of conduct for council members