She’ll Hit the Ground Running--Galanter

City Councilwoman-elect Ruth Galanter, preparing to take office this week, said Sunday that she is determined to “hit the ground running as fast as I can,” despite the fact that as she spoke she was still hospitalized for neck injuries from a near-fatal attack in May.

Galanter, in an interview at UCLA Medical Center, talked about her political priorities, as well as matters more personal: an earlier brutal attack--a rape-- 20 years ago in Connecticut, and her feelings as a crime victim.

In a hoarse, whispery voice interrupted often by dry coughs that she treated with sips of hot tea, Galanter declared that she will be released from the hospital in time to be sworn in to cast a vote for the new council president to replace Pat Russell, whom Galanter defeated in early June.

“I’ll be there Wednesday,” Galanter said. “I’ll hit the ground running as fast as I can. In the last couple of days I’ve started to feel much more lively. This is a serious injury and it took me a while to realize that.”

After several weeks of having problems digesting food and of feeling extremely tired, Galanter said, she is now eating better, feeling less tired and is meeting regularly with her staff about council office work.

Galanter was attacked by an intruder with a knife in her Venice home May 6. Mark Allen Olds, a 27-year-old gang member with a history of drug use, according to police, was charged with the assault that left two major stab wounds in Galanter’s neck and nearly killed her. Olds lived in a boarding house across the street from Galanter’s home.

“Actually this is not the first time in my life that I’ve been a crime victim but this is much more serious,” Galanter said. When asked about the other crime, Galanter replied, “I got raped 20 years ago.”

Galanter, 46, spoke haltingly about the rape, saying only that it happened in Connecticut when she was in her 20s. “The guy did not hurt me. Well, he did but this is a very different psychological thing.” As far as the police and her doctor have told her, “it’s my impression that I was not” sexually assaulted by her attacker in May, Galanter said.

Galanter said that letters from others who have been assaulted and her own experience underscores that being a crime victim is “a rotten thing to deal with. I’d always hoped having been a victim once, that was it, that was my quota. . . . The fact that you have been a victim (is) not fair. You know the movie where they all lean out of the window and yell, ‘I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore?’ That’s what people should feel about crime.

“You know you read all the time about parents who decided we’re not going to have dope dealing on this block anymore and they find a way to get rid of it. I want to help them get rid of it.

“I can think of no real advantages to what happened except that I discovered how many wonderful loving people there are out there in the world, people who don’t even know me,” Galanter added.

Theresa Saldana, the actress who was attacked by a knife-wielding assailant in 1982, left a message for Galanter the day she was taken to the hospital and has since sent her a book and other information about dealing with the attack, Galanter said. Her eyes misting, Galanter said another man wrote that he had a priest offer a Mass for her, while another woman she barely knew from college sent her a comforting note.

She has been urged by some to seek counseling to help her work through her May attack, Galanter said, and “if I feel counseling resources would be useful I’m certainly going to use them.” Galanter said that she plans to return to her Venice home, across the street from where her alleged assailant lived “because it’s my home. I like my neighborhood, I like my neighbors . . . with a couple of exceptions,” she said, smiling dryly.

When Olds has his preliminary hearing July 13, “My hope is that the police will bring me in, have me say my piece and then they will take care of it. I want to move on, there are a lot of things to do out there.”

One of the first things she wants to do, Galanter said, is to talk with representatives of the Summa Corp. about problems she has with the firm’s plans to build large office and residential developments, especially one named Playa Vista in the Westchester section of the 6th City Council District.

“I don’t propose to dictate to any landowner my personal view of what ought to be on the land,” Galanter said. “What I plan to do is represent people. . . . We have a major project coming along in Crenshaw. . . . I will need to spend, as I think any freshman council member should, a lot of time really learning what’s on everybody’s minds in City Hall as well as outside. . . . I’m most anxious to see if we can find a more deliberative, less crisis-oriented way of going about solving problems.

“I’m getting much better,” Galanter added. “I keep hearing that ‘if she’s not out (of the hospital) yet, she must be dead,’ you know. I’m not dead. I’m a long way from it.”