CITY COUNCIL / 12TH DISTRICT : Gates Rallies Forces in Support of Bernson : Northwest Valley: GOP lawmakers stump for the incumbent. Challenger Julie Korenstein makes personal appeals to undecided voters.

Hal Bernson got a plug from Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, and Julie Korenstein pitched herself in phone calls to undecided voters Saturday as the two Los Angeles City Council candidates entered the final weekend of campaigning before Tuesday’s runoff election.

Bernson told about 140 applauding, sign-waving supporters at a Granada Hills park that “this is a very close race” and he needed their help in getting pro-Bernson voters to the polls.

“This weekend is going to make the difference. . . . So I’m asking you, if you have any time to go out and walk precincts, or to phone today, or to come out and work Election Day, we need you,” said the councilman, speaking from a balloon-festooned bandstand in the park.

Bernson, 60, is waging the most intense reelection battle of his 12-year council career against Korenstein, a Los Angeles Board of Education member from Northridge who has repeatedly criticized him for his backing of the vast Porter Ranch development project.

In his speech, Bernson, a conservative Republican, tried to keep the campaign focused squarely on the GOP’s touchstone issues of crime and taxes.

He cited his vote Friday against the City Council’s imposition of a real estate transfer tax aimed at eliminating a $52.7-million budget deficit. Bernson also pledged to “continue very strongly my fight to keep our streets safe” and add more police officers in the largely affluent, suburban 12th Council District.

Gates, who was greeted by loud applause and cheering at the rally, praised Bernson as “a man who knows how to deal with crime.” He cited Bernson’s support for law enforcement, including the police-sponsored DARE anti-drug program in local schools.

Gates said he was moved to personally endorse Bernson--the first time he has given such backing to a council candidate--after Korenstein sent out a campaign mailer claiming that the number of crimes in the 12th District has jumped 73% since Bernson took office in 1979.

“There was information passed around in this district about a tremendous increase in crime. That simply is not true,” Gates said.

Asked how he would reply to critics who say he is unwisely injecting politics into his office by aiding Bernson, Gates said he was giving his endorsement as a private citizen.

“I think I have got rights, and I’m doing it. . . . I’ve never been involved in partisan politics,” he said.

Bernson was joined at his rally by virtually every major Republican officeholder in the northwest San Fernando Valley, including U.S. Rep. Elton Gallegly of Simi Valley and state Assemblywomen Paula Boland of Granada Hills and Cathie Wright of Simi Valley.

The councilman again highlighted his ideological differences with Korenstein, a liberal Democrat, pointing to her onetime membership in the left-wing Peace and Freedom Party and her 1984 effort to become a delegate pledged to the Rev. Jesse Jackson at the Democratic National Convention.

Bernson has repeatedly underscored Korenstein’s political past in recent weeks, hoping that it will damage her among voters in the moderate-to-conservative 12th District, the only one in the city where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats.

Korenstein, 47, spent part of Saturday at her Northridge campaign headquarters, alternately giving interviews to reporters and telephoning undecided voters as well as those who already back her, urging them to get to the polls Tuesday.

She said she views the most important issue in the campaign as excessive development, not crime. She added that Bernson was using Gates and the anti-crime theme to deflect public attention from his repeated efforts to win city approvals for the sprawling Porter Ranch project.

Korenstein has based much of her campaign on her opposition to the project, which is designed to house more than 11,000 people in the foothills north of Chatsworth. She has described it as an “environmental catastrophe” that will seriously overload local roads, schools and sewage treatment facilities.

She dismissed Bernson’s efforts to paint her as a left-wing radical, saying voters are less concerned with political labels than candidates’ positions on pressing local issues.

“I am trying to conserve the quality of life in the 12th District. I am a conservative. Mr. Bernson is radically changing it. His Porter Ranch project is radically changing our quality of life,” she said.

Korenstein also introduced a Los Angeles police detective, Arthur (Larry) Kagele, who argued that the 12th District anti-crime Neighborhood Watch organization was founded by former Police Chief Ed Davis, not Bernson, as the councilman claims.

“The only reason he’s interested in Neighborhood Watch is to further his political career. . . . He wanted to go to meetings and meet more people,” said Kagele, who endorsed Korenstein after he and three other anti-Bernson candidates were defeated in the April 9 primary election.