Video Shows Veto Override Didn’t Happen, Mayor Says

Around Mayor Richard Riordan’s office, it’s a major Gotcha!

One day after believing that the City Council had overridden the mayor’s veto of a dance permit for a Hollywood nightclub, Riordan aides gleefully asserted Wednesday that they have evidence the vote was illegal.

The aides played and replayed a videotape of that portion of Tuesday’s meeting. Twelve council members could be seen. One of those lawmakers, however, cast a dissenting vote; a veto override takes at least 12 votes.

Missing from the picture were Councilmen Hal Bernson and Richard Alarcon. Bernson might have been outside the council chamber; it depends on whom you talk to. Alarcon was in the back getting coffee.

And Councilman Nate Holden was absent for that portion of the meeting.

But when the vote was taken, the clerk read the result as 13 to 1. She swiftly changed that to 12 to 1 when an Alarcon aide told her his boss had stepped outside the chamber.

“This certainly raises questions about the legality of the vote,” said Noelia Rodriguez, Riordan’s spokeswoman. “How many council members does it take to count to 12? According to the videotape, in Los Angeles it seems to be 11.”

Ironically, Bernson was attempting to broker a deal with Deputy Mayor Stephanie Bradfield at the time of the vote. She says they were standing in a corridor behind the council chamber when the vote was held.

“I was surprised--and I think the councilman was also--to learn while we were negotiating on this issue, the vote had been taken,” Bradfield said. “When that vote was taken, Councilman Bernson was outside the council chambers talking to me.”

According to council rules, lawmakers are considered present only when they are within the council chamber. If they are in the chamber but away from their desk, they automatically are recorded as casting affirmative votes. Bernson was recorded as an “aye” vote.

The issue now has almost nothing to do with the Hollywood Moguls nightclub or its permit. Now, some council observers believe, it’s about winning and losing.

“I think it’s time for all of us to move on,” said Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, who waited six weeks to win the vote that was recorded Tuesday.

For his part, Bernson says he doesn’t remember where he was when the vote was cast, although he knows he was talking to Bradfield. He says he could have been in the back hallway or he could have been in the council chamber, but just around the corner.

Even he is mildly upset that the vote was conducted “faster than a speeding bullet.” With another few minutes, he said, the mayor’s office would have been satisfied with a compromise.

“I don’t know what everyone’s getting so excited about. . . ,” said Bernson, who had meditated a meeting last month between the mayor and Goldberg on the issue. “I think everyone got what they wanted in the end.”

Well, maybe.

It remained unclear if the vote would be changed. Neither the city clerk’s office nor the city attorney’s office could say what would happen, since no one could recall anything like it.

Typically, if council members leave the room, they alert the clerk on how to record their votes.

“I would be shocked if any more votes are taken on this,” Goldberg said.

Council President John Ferraro told an aide he did not believe there was anything irregular.

Not so the mayor’s office.

“Once the question is raised, there probably needs to be an answer,” said spokeswoman Rodriguez. “And that’s not going to come from this office.”