Bernardi Scholarship Fund Established

Even as he bade farewell to the Los Angeles City Council after 32 years Tuesday, Councilman Ernani Bernardi set up a $1-million scholarship fund--which bears his name--at Mission College, tapping money set aside to compensate Lake View Terrace residents for the presence of a city-owned dump.

Leaders of homeowner groups, who have clashed before with Bernardi over the proper use of the dump fund, criticized him again, adding a touch of controversy to the finale of his often contentious career.

The council voted unanimously for a Bernardi motion to set up the endowment for students from the northeastern San Fernando Valley to attend the two-year college in Sylmar.

Dr. Jack Fujimoto, president of Mission College, said the endowment will be the college’s largest by far.

The money will come from a trust account set up by the City Council to provide amenities in Lake View Terrace to compensate residents affected by noise, odors and traffic from the huge, city-owned Lopez Canyon garbage dump there.

“I thought this would be as good an investment as could be made in the community affected by the landfill,” Bernardi said after Tuesday’s council vote. His final term expires as of midnight tonight.

The Lopez Canyon trust account was set up in 1991, at Bernardi’s request, to mollify local residents after the council approved a five-year expansion of the landfill.

“This scholarship will benefit students in our area who haven’t normally gone to college,” Fujimoto said Tuesday. “It’s a great deal.

“Our feeder high schools send very low numbers of kids to college,” Fujimoto said. “I think this fund will provide them with an additional boost to go to college. Now there’ll be no excuse for them to say they don’t have the money. That’s what we’re banking on.”

The measure was amended Tuesday by Council President John Ferraro to name the scholarship fund after Bernardi. Initially, it was to be called simply the Lopez Canyon Scholarship Trust Fund.

The use of the money kept alive a running feud between Bernardi and leaders of some northeast San Fernando Valley homeowners groups over proper use of funds in the Lopez Canyon trust account. Bernardi clashed with residents earlier this year over his proposal, approved by the council, to take $850,000 from the trust fund to buy an office in Pacoima for a police anti-gang program.

“I think (the scholarship) is a very borderline use of the Lopez Canyon money,” said Lewis Snow, president of the Lake View Terrace Homeowners Assn. “Spending $1 million on this is very unreasonable when there are other deserving projects,” such as establishing an equestrian center at Orcas Park, Snow said. Only the interest earned by the $1-million fund will be used for the scholarships.

Bernardi and Fujimoto estimated that the fund would generate enough income to provide $600 scholarships--covering books as well as the $300 tuition--for 30 to 50 students per year.

Under the terms of the scholarship ordinance, only students residing in a specified area will be eligible for the financial aid.

That area includes almost all of Lake View Terrace, plus the part of Pacoima that lies north of Osborne Street and east of San Fernando Road; the city of San Fernando east of San Fernando Road, and Sylmar, south of Hubbard Street. A large number of the college’s 6,000 students come from this area.

The ordinance provides that the college itself will nominate eligible candidates for the scholarships but that the final selection will be made by council members representing the affected area.