THE ELECTION : Bernardi Tops Council Foe; City Turnout Near a Low

Ernani Bernardi, the longest-serving member of the Los Angeles City Council and embroiled in the fight of his political life, captured a clear victory Tuesday over aggressive challenger Lyle Hall on an election day marked by one of the lowest voter turnouts in city history.

With almost all of the votes counted, the 28-year council veteran held a comfortable lead over Hall, a 49-year-old city fire captain, after a campaign that raged with slick mailers and vocal personality disputes.

No official turnout figures were available hours after the polls closed. But at 7 p.m., an hour before closing, city officials estimated the turnout at a sparse 7.4% citywide, well below the record low of 8.6% set in 1983. Turnout in the 7th District, however, approached 20%.

City Clerk Elias Martinez said late Tuesday that the overall total would fall under 10%. Fears of voter apathy had led his office to withhold its traditional election eve turnout prediction for fear of discouraging any of the 1.9 million eligible voters from visiting the polling stations.

Last Run for Veteran

Bernardi, 77 and making what he described as his last run for office, was forced into a runoff when he received only 42% of the vote in April’s primary. Hall won 26%.

The council’s 1986 reapportionment had carved from Bernardi his supportive Van Nuys electorate and replaced it with Sylmar, Lake View Terrace and Pacoima--and Bernardi suffered from the displacement throughout the campaign.

But in declaring victory three hours after the polls closed, the council dean credited his showing to a traditional grass-roots effort.

“This has been the most difficult race in more ways than one and the most gratifying,” the visibly overwhelmed Bernardi told cheering supporters. “I couldn’t feel any better, any happier.”

Hall declared himself “disappointed” by the turnout and, in a concession address, pledged to make another run in four years.

“Half a world away people are dying for just a taste of democracy,” he said, referring to China. “And we take it for granted.”

Elsewhere, a woman who died six weeks before the election lost a school board race in Inglewood despite a persistent campaign waged by her daughters from their family living room. Thomasina Reed, 40, defeated deceased incumbent Caroline Coleman by pulling in an estimated 62% of the vote. A Coleman victory would have required the board to appoint a replacement or call a special election.

In that city’s council races, Jose Fernandez became the first Latino council member in the city, whose population is 30% Latino, beating former councilman Bruce U. Smith by a margin of nearly 2-1. And Daniel K. Tabor won a third term with a narrow victory over John C. Gibbs.

In Compton, a raucous campaign ended with incumbent Mayor Walter Tucker easily winning his third successive term over the challenge of political consultant Chuck Esters Jr.

Tucker, a 64-year-old dentist, was forced into a runoff when he received 49.1% of the vote in the primary. During the campaign, Tucker supporters hired a private detective who photographed the 37-year-old Esters--the son of a well-known minister--outside a Compton nightclub known for its nude dancers.

Making his first try at public office, Esters’ fortunes were temporarily boosted by the endorsement of Rep. Mervyn Dymally (D-Compton).

In Compton’s only council race, three-time incumbent Robert L. Adams lost to a strong showing by 64-year-old Bernice Woods. Former Councilman Floyd A. James, who mounted a write-in campaign for the Adams seat after losing his own post in April, was a distant third.

Bernardi, who during his council tenure forged a reputation for predictable curmudgeonly “no” votes on spending proposals, faced an uphill battle against Hall from the campaign’s beginnings.

The 1986 redistricting placed the council’s dean in a district far removed politically from his former base in Van Nuys--and low turnouts commonly spell trouble for incumbents who lack a specific polarizing issue on which to campaign.

Indeed, the Hall-Bernardi race turned less on issues than on personalities. The two men battled for their reputations in diverse fashions--Bernardi shrieking his disapproval of Hall at community forums and Hall reserving his biting retorts for slick mailers sent to voters’ homes.

Hall repeatedly sought to raise voter concerns about Bernardi’s age. One of his more pointed brochures compared Bernardi with the aging center for the Los Angeles Lakers: “Kareem Abdul-Jabbar knows when to retire. Why doesn’t Ernie Bernardi?”

Bernardi, in contrast, ridiculed Hall as a “Johnny-come-lately.” And he lamented the redistricting that had placed him in unfamiliar territory.

“It’s close to starting over again,” he said.

From the beginning, Hall led in one measure of potential success: money. The most recent financial reports showed that Hall had raised $131,400 since the primary, nearly twice the $71,000 raised by Bernardi. The challenger also spent more than the incumbent.

But Bernardi had once before beaten back a better-financed opponent, defeating Paul Goldener in 1981 despite Goldener’s wide edge in fund-raising.

As the campaign drew to a close and polls predicted a tight finish, the two men also engaged in a battle of endorsements. The weekend before the election, state Democratic Party Chairman and former Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. offered his and the party’s endorsement of union leader Hall, despite the technically nonpartisan nature of the race.

In reprisal, fellow Democrat Bernardi unveiled a letter of praise from the other Edmund G. Brown--former Gov. Pat Brown, Jerry’s father.

The two other cities involved in Tuesday’s election sported admittedly unusual campaigns.

In the Inglewood school race, Coleman’s supporters argued that a vote for the incumbent would keep the seat open--and deny it to challenger Reed. Coleman died three weeks after winning 44% of the vote in the April 4 primary election, in which Reed collected 26%.

Reed, who moved to Inglewood in 1987, was criticized as a newcomer, but she won the endorsements of by Supervisor Kenneth Hahn and U.S. Reps. Julian Dixon (D-Inglewood) and Dymally.

In that city’s council battles, incumbent Tabor had been forced into the first runoff of his career. Gibbs, endorsed by the locally powerful Mayor Edward Vincent, finished ahead of Tabor in April’s 1st District balloting by 59 votes out of the 1,639 cast.

In the ethnically diverse 3rd District, Fernandez’s effort to become the council’s first Latino was challenged by Smith, who served two terms on the council but was defeated in 1987. The seat had been held by Ann A. Wilk until her death in December.

LOCAL ELECTIONS

Los Angeles

City Council

98% Precincts Reporting

District 7

Votes % Ernani Bernardi, i. 8,575 55 Lyle Hall 6,923 45

Board of Education

94% Precincts Reporting

District 2

Votes % Mark Slavkin 20,496 51 Alan Gershman, i. 19,651 49 District 4 Julie Korenstein, i. 24,120 55 Jerry Horowitz 19,950 45

Community College Board

94% Precincts Reporting

Office 2

Votes % Pat Owens 77,634 52 Rose Ochi 70,602 48 Office 6 Althea Baker 76,356 52 Patricia Hollingsworth 69,477 48

Compton

100% Precincts Reporting

Mayor

Votes % Walter Tucker, i. 3,925 61 Chuck Esters Jr. 2,555 39 City Council District 3 Bernice Woods 3,356 53 Robert Adams Sr., i. 2,669 43 Floyd James* 247 4

Inglewood

100% Precincts Reporting

City Council

District 1

Votes % Daniel Tabor, i. 1,526 52 John Gibbs 1,393 48 District 3 Jose Fernandez 803 63 Bruce Smith 471 37 Board of Education Seat 1 Thomasina Reed 3,219 63 Caroline Coleman, i.** 1,913 37

South Pasadena Unified School District

100% Precincts Reporting

Tax Measure

A--School Improvements

(2/3 Majority Required)

Votes % Yes 2,851 62 No 1,728 38

Westside Union School District, Lancaster Area

100% Precincts Reporting

Bond Measure

K--School Facilities

(2/3 Majority Required)

Votes % Yes 1,557 68 No 744 32

Three Valleys Municipal Water District, Eastern San Gabriel Valley Area

100% Precincts Reporting

Board of Directors

Division 6

Votes % Robert Armstrong 845 67 Margaret Szczepaniak 415 33

KEY

i. Incumbent .

* Write-in.

* * Deceased.

Winners are in bold type.

Compiled by Alma Cook; also contributing were Warwick J. Elston, John Hayes, Bill McElhaney and David J. Van Houten.