Russell, Honored From Afar, Faces Trouble at Home

On the eve of her toughest reelection battle, Los Angeles City Council President Pat Russell, for 17 years a leader in City Hall campaigns for gay rights, comparable pay for women, fair housing for children and slum rehabilitation, stands accused of turning her back on her constituents.

Russell, who has won state and national honors for good governance, may be in the most trouble closest to her own home, in the seaside suburbs of Westchester and Playa del Rey, where her neighbors deserted her in droves in the April primary.

With only a week left before the June 2 runoff in the 6th District council election, it appears that Russell’s future will be determined in those white, middle-class neighborhoods.

It is there that the issues of this election are being debated most intensely. The debate has little to do with the struggle for civil rights and urban revitalization that won Russell and other allies of Mayor Tom Bradley the support of minorities, labor and business.

Instead, the talk is about the perils of too much growth, from clogged freeways to fouled water to blocked views, and about Russell’s reputed insensitivity, not only to these concerns, but to basic services like repairing street pot holes, trimming trees, providing enough parking spaces and removing abandoned cars.

Challenged by Novice

These are the issues that gave rise to the challenge from her opponent on the June 2 ballot, Ruth Galanter, 46, an urban planner and political novice.

Galanter has had to campaign from a hospital bed as she recuperates from a knife attack in her home on May 6. As a result, Russell must contend with the prospect of a sympathy vote for Galanter as well as with the charge that she is neglecting her constituents.

A common complaint about Russell is that she has changed, that the community activist who arrived in City Hall leading a neighborhood fight against the expansion of Los Angeles International Airport has joined the ranks of the enemy, the developers and lobbyists who are homing in on the last open land in her district.

“Russell is clearly more interested in building a world-class city than in preserving livable neighborhoods,” said a member of the council who is supporting her.

The lesson of this election is that the voters may have changed as much as Russell. To win in this city, candidates may have to offer more than a pragmatically liberal platform that promises profits to developers, jobs to unions and housing to the poor.

“I think Pat Russell is part of a very interesting multiracial coalition that is in jeopardy, if it hasn’t broken down,” said Dan Garcia, president of the City Planning Commission and a supporter of Russell.

Quality of Life

With voting power concentrating in the hands of white, middle-class homeowners, incumbents like Russell may have to focus on the kind of quality-of-life issues that occupy the average commuter while he or she inches through traffic or sits at home staring at the new office building that has obliterated the view of the San Gabriels and cast a permanent shadow across the backyard.

At the outset of the runoff campaign, the team of political consultants Russell hired after a disappointing primary performance quickly identified the issue of her responsiveness to neighborhood concerns as her primary liability.

“Pat is basically a behind-the-scenes person . . . a work horse, not a show horse. The challenge of this campaign is that she has to be seen as a caring person,” one of the consultants said.

People who have known Russell for a long time describe her as a person with a lot of warmth and little ability to project it.

One City Hall employee, who had just received news of the death of a close friend, said she will never forget Russell’s solicitude that day.

“I was sitting there, looking pretty forlorn, and Pat came over and just sort of took over my life for a little while,” said the employee, who did not work for Russell. “Pat asked me if I had eaten. And, of course, I hadn’t. So, she went off and got me a sandwich.”

The episode revealed a side of Russell that few people see, the employee said.

‘She Is . . . Measuring’

“When she meets people, she has that look in her eye, as if she is always measuring you.”

Beyond the look, there is a chilly timbre to her voice, a businesslike approach to public speaking that one colleague described as “terminally clinical,” and an off-putting impatience that can make visiting constituents feel like uninvited guests.

There is also Russell’s preference for resolving public policy disputes behind closed doors, a habit that lends a conspiratorial cast to her image.

“She is a victim of her own style, which involves working things out behind the scenes with allies through consensus and agreeing on final positions in private,” Garcia said.

In 1983, Russell was elected council president, and it was from that position that she developed a reputation as a gifted consensus builder, often in behalf of human rights policies espoused by her mentor, Bradley. It has been during her presidency, however, that Russell’s base of support in her district has begun to erode.

She was hurt by her votes in favor of the Occidental Petroleum Corp.’s proposed drilling project in Pacific Palisades, by her opposition to a widely sought ban on new high-rise construction in Westwood and by her efforts to modify Proposition U, a 1986 ballot initiative limiting commercial construction that won overwhelming approval, especially in Russell’s district.

Moreover, her ambitious contribution to solving the city’s traffic congestion, an ordinance that requires developers who generate more traffic to pay for transportation improvements, has drawn only mixed reviews.

The critics argue that any plan that allows more cars on the streets is doomed to fail.

Absentee Image

Although Russell’s growing interest in citywide and regional issues won her high praise from groups like the California League of Cities and the Southern California Council of Governments, it has elicited scorn from constituents who see her as an absentee councilwoman.

“For the past several years, she has behaved more like a mayor than a councilwoman,” said an aide to a council colleague who has known Russell since she took office.

“I don’t think she has spent as much time positioning herself to look good in her district (as) she did before she took over the council presidency. I think it hurt her some,” Garcia said.

Speaking in her own defense, Russell makes no apologies for keeping her eye on the big picture, even if it means ignoring a pothole or two.

”. . . My vision, as we grow into being the world city people talk about,” Russell said, “is to retain the human quality that I think has always been Los Angeles, that we care about the people here--all kinds of people, wherever they come from; that we take care of children; that there is a place for everybody, and that everybody can have a job, get schooling and enjoy the wonderful life that is Los Angeles, surrounded by ocean, mountains and desert.”

Russell said she believes that her constituents want her to do more than worry about potholes.

“They also look for a vision, and for the future. . . . It’s really what people are thinking about a lot.”

‘Appeal to . . . Minds’

Although Russell dismisses much of the criticism of her responsiveness as empty campaign rhetoric, she says there have been “goofs.”

“I will never pretend to say that I catch everything that comes into the office,” she said. “We had a lean time in the office last summer. One of our staunchest members died. It really was a drain . . . and some of the things that came up didn’t get handled, and I feel bad about that. But I’m not going to turn myself inside out, because all of us are human.” Russell does, however, sound troubled by the criticism that she is cold and aloof.

“I guess I just appeal more to people’s minds than their emotions,” she said recently. “I do so deeply count on people to think. But I have to be reminded to do other things, too. I realize that people vote out of a gut feeling about a candidate and then find a reason for voting the way they do.”

Yet, Russell is ever the pragmatist, believing that personal limitations are no more daunting than the mountains and marathons she periodically tackles. She looks at the task of projecting a different personality as a political chore she can handle.

“I just have to be reminded to do a little demagoguery, to toot my horn, that sort of thing,” she said brightly. A little more of that tooting, of boasting about what she has done for her district, Russell believes, would have discredited charges of her unresponsiveness.

Those charges reached a crescendo in the days after the knife attack on Galanter.

Complaints About House

Galanter’s neighbors accused Russell of ignoring their pleas, in a letter sent to her office three months ago, asking her to look into suspected criminal activity at a local boarding house, where, it turned out, the suspect in the knifing had been living. At a press conference organized by Galanter’s campaign staff, the neighbors said the assault might not have happened if Russell had responded to their request.

The suspect, 27-year-old Mark Allen Olds, has a history of drug use and gang membership. Police have charged him with attempted murder.

Russell said she never received the letter from Galanter’s neighbors, a denial that gained a measure of credibility when it was discovered that the letter had been addressed to the wrong City Hall office.

Nevertheless, the well-publicized complaint about Russell’s lack of responsiveness struck a sympathetic chord elsewhere in her district.

Along Palms Boulevard in Venice, residents said they had been trying for three years to get Russell to help them shut down another boarding house where police had made numerous visits to break up fights and confiscate firearms.

Even supporters of Russell talk about the difficulties people have had getting her ear.

“I’ve had several clients who’ve gotten the run-around,” said Lois Becker, a Westchester realtor who plans to vote for Russell.

‘Never Answer’

“She had a much better staff eight to ten years ago,” said Helen Fallon, a Venice resident concerned about the rehabilitation of the Venice canals.

“You never get an answer to a letter. . . . They (Russell’s staff) never answer anything,” Fallon said.

Ray Liccini, a Westchester resident who helped raise money for Russell the last time she ran for reelection, said he became disillusioned with her after she refused to meet with him and some neighbors worried about the pace of nearby commercial development.

Plenty of Defenders

“The response was very bad,” he said. “She would make herself scarce.”

At the same time, Russell has plenty of defenders, including people opposed to her policies on development, who say she is good at responding to their requests for basic services.

“If we see abandoned cars in the neighborhood and we call Russell’s office about them, we do get results,” said Jeanne Morgan of Westchester.

Over the last several years, Hubert Andrew of Crenshaw said, he has frequently called Russell’s office about such problems as abandoned cars, vacant houses and broken water lines, always receiving prompt service.

“She always takes care of it, whatever it is,” Andrew said.

Despite her poor showing in the primary--needing a simple majority, she received only 42% of the votes--Russell is battling back.

Local Radicals

It has not been easy launching a counteroffensive against a determined challenger whose courage in the face of a terrifying ordeal has won her even broader support. With the aid of her new team of political consultants, Russell has risen to the task. Her strategy is to put Galanter on the defensive, partly by repeating a vague charge that Galanter has ties to local radicals.

If she wins, Russell-watchers in City Hall say, she should heed the wisdom of one of her ex-colleagues, former Councilman Arthur K. Snyder, an Irishman who stayed in power in a Latino district for 18 years on the strength of his service to constituents.

“Some people I’ve seen get elected to the City Council feel they’ve just been elected vice president. They feel very important,” he said.

The truth of the matter, he said, is that “at least half of your job and maybe more is to be the local plumber. You’ve been elected the guy who fixes things.”