Bernson Fared Worst Near Porter Ranch in Council Primary : Elections: Runoff opponent Julie Korenstein’s best showing was in the same area, where anti-development feelings are strong.

Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson’s reelection drive bogged down April 9 at polls in neighborhoods closest to the Porter Ranch development site, where four of every five votes went to his challengers, detailed election results show.

A Times review of voting in the 203 precincts of the 12th District found pockets of Bernson strength scattered throughout the northwest San Fernando Valley, particularly in areas where Bernson, now seeking a fourth term, has aggressively stepped in to address neighborhood problems. Meanwhile, the greatest support for school board member Julie Korenstein, who will face Bernson in the June 4 runoff election, came from the Porter Ranch area, where anti-development sentiment is strong.

Korenstein’s weakest showings were in the Sepulveda area and around the Chatsworth Reservoir, two areas where Bernson registered strength. Both areas are far removed from Porter Ranch. “People there are not as aware of Bernson’s development record,” said Parke Skelton, Korenstein’s campaign consultant.

Bernson received 34.7% of the vote in the April 9 primary. Korenstein got 29% and the four other candidates split the remaining 36%. Bernson, 60, joined Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, who faces a runoff on June 4, as only the eighth and ninth Los Angeles City Council incumbents in 20 years to be forced into a runoff election.

Not since 1971--when Councilman James Potter Jr. drew only 18.7% of the vote--has a council incumbent suffered as badly at the polls as Bernson did last week. The record of council incumbents winning a runoff election is mixed. In seven runoffs over the past two decades, incumbents have won three times and challengers four.

In the runoff, Bernson is expected to play to his strengths by emphasizing neighborhoods where last week’s returns show a high degree of support. “We want to maximize the turnout in those areas,” said Hal Dash of Cerrell & Associates, the political management firm running Bernson’s reelection campaign. “We expect more voter interest in the runoff than there was in the primary.”

In post-election interviews, Bernson and his political advisers have vowed to launch stepped-up attacks on Korenstein’s liberal affiliations and renew his effort to correct “distortions” about the Porter Ranch plan.

Bernson was flattened by Korenstein and challenger Walter Prince, a Northridge businessman, in the 13 precincts nearest to the proposed Porter Ranch development, planned for a 1,300-acre site in the rolling hills north of Chatsworth. Under a 1990 City Council-approved plan--shepherded through City Hall by Bernson--as much as 6 million square feet of office and retail space and 3,395 residential units could be built on the land over the next 20 years.

Bernson received only 19.3% of the vote in the Porter Ranch area precincts, all of which lie north of the Simi Valley Freeway and west of Aliso Canyon, the natural cleft which separates the already developed Porter Ranch neighborhood from Granada Hills to the east.

Thirty-five percent of voters in those 13 precincts chose Korenstein. Prince, the third-place candidate, collected 25.3% of the vote.

Both Korenstein and Prince played to voters angry over the Bernson-backed Porter Ranch Specific Plan, and also hammered the incumbent for his alleged ethical shortcomings, including his use of campaign money to fund foreign trips for himself and his family.

Bernson did much better elsewhere, winning 50% or more of the vote in 17 precincts. But only two of those precincts were north of Lassen Street, a thoroughfare that roughly splits the 12th District in half, north-south. Porter Ranch is generally expected to affect the northern areas much more than neighborhoods south of Lassen Street.

The disaffection spread even into Granada Hills, Bernson’s home turf. On election day, Bernson predicted Granada Hills, where he has worked and lived since 1959, would rally to his side. But returns showed he received just 37.2% of the vote in the community.

In his home precinct, near Robert Frost Junior High School, Bernson scored slightly better, drawing 40.6%. Bernson was strongest in the modest blue-collar neighborhoods in the southern half of his district, especially in areas where he has sponsored programs popular with local residents.

For instance, in the neighborhoods surrounding the Chatsworth Reservoir, where he supported a plan to preserve the site as a waterfowl sanctuary, Bernson received 45% to 50% of the vote in a half dozen precincts.

He also had strong showings near the Bryant-Vanalden neighborhood, where he sponsored a major revitalization program, and in precincts along Balboa Boulevard, south of Lassen Street, where he has sided with residents who want to change their community name from Sepulveda to Northridge.

The only two precincts in the northern half of the district to cast a majority of votes for Bernson were adjacent to Sunshine Canyon Landfill, where Bernson has waged a lengthy battle to block expansion of the dump.

To unseat the incumbent, Korenstein now must woo voters who favored one of the four losers in the primary: Prince; Allen Hecht, a print-shop owner; Arthur (Larry) Kagele, an LAPD detective, and Leonard Shapiro, publisher of a public affairs newsletter.

Skelton believes that should be easy. He said research indicates Korenstein should inherit votes that went to the minor candidates in the primary. Besides Porter Ranch, Korenstein showed strength near Cal State Northridge.

Her support diminished in Granada Hills, where nearly two-thirds of the non-Bernson voters favored other challengers. In more than a dozen precincts in Chatsworth and Northridge, she was either outpolled by Prince or pulled roughly the same number of votes he did. In her home precinct in Porter Ranch, she received 37.5% of the vote.

Voter turnout in the 13 Porter Ranch-adjacent precincts averaged 22%, slightly ahead of the districtwide turnout average of 20%. Including absentee ballots, turnout was more than 24%, the highest among City Council districts last week.