Harold M. Bernson (November 19, 1930July 20, 2020) was a Los Angeles City Council member for 24 years, from 1979 until his retirement in 2003. A conservative Republican, he was a leading proponent of the San Fernando Valley seceding from the rest of Los Angeles. Early life Bernson was born in South Gate, California, on November 19, 1930, to Jewish parents, his father from Romania and his mother from Poland. He grew up in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights, where he became a bar mitzvah at the historic Breed Street Shul. He recalled that at the age of ten he attended services at the synagogue three times a day to recite a mourner's prayer for his father. As a young man, he served in the Navy and afterward ran a clothing store in Bakersfield. He moved back to Los Angeles in 1956 and to the San Fernando Valley in 1958. Civic activities In 1977, he was the Northwest San Fernando Valley chairman for Senator Alan Robbins' anti-busing initiative and amendments before being on the steering committee for Yes on Proposition 13 in 1978. From 1978 to 1979, he was a columnist for the San Fernando Valley Chronicle He was also a cofounder and board member of CIVICC (Committee Investigating Valley Independence for the City/County). In partisan politics, he was a Republican. City Council Elections Bernson and Barbara Klein led the pack of sixteen candidates who in 1979 ran in Los Angeles City Council District 12, in the northwest San Fernando Valley, to succeed retiring Councilman Robert M. Wilkinson. In the runoff, Bernson easily beat Klein by a vote of 24,825 to 12,415. Bernson was reelected in every vote thereafter until his own retirement in 2003, although in 1991 he was forced into a runoff with Julie Korenstein, who was one of the challengers who attacked him for backing the controversial Porter Ranch development in his district (below). It was, however, not strictly true that Bernson was "pro-growth," the Times reported during that campaign, listing several incidents in which the councilman had voted against developers' wishes. Bernson labeled Korenstein as "at one time . . . a Peace and Freedom member." Highlights 'Mister Earthquake' Bernson was dubbed "Mister Earthquake," for his driven attitude toward making city building safe in the event of temblors. The Times said of that Bernson was the most avid proponent of seismic safety on the