Some of Galanter’s Former Allies Plot Her Overthrow

Her campaign was like none other in the city of Los Angeles.

Not only did Ruth Galanter pull off the unthinkable by toppling Pat Russell, powerful president and 17-year veteran of the City Council, she did it from a hospital bed after surviving a brutal stabbing in her home.

“It was very moving and emotional,” said campaign volunteer Nancy Kent of Venice. “There was a tremendous amount of hope.”

But two years later, Kent is among a core of former 6th District supporters who accuse Galanter of having “betrayed the revolution,” as one of them put it. To them, the Ruth Galanter that they elected--the scrappy survivor, political outsider and neighborhood defender--has sold out.

“She said she would maintain our quality of life, or even improve it,” said Westchester activist Marilyn Cole. “Instead, she is letting it get worse.”

Midway through her first term, Galanter is facing a small but determined group of constituents who are plotting her overthrow. The residents complain that the councilwoman, who came to symbolize the grass-roots, slow-growth movement in Los Angeles, has committed two of Russell’s biggest sins: She has allowed too much development, and she has lost touch with those who put her in City Hall.

Defenders Point to Deeds

Galanter and her defenders bristle at such allegations, pointing proudly to her accomplishments and denying that the 48-year-old former planning consultant ever promised a revolution. They accuse Galanter’s foes of making her a scapegoat for seething frustrations about urban Los Angeles that no elected official could resolve in two years.

“They expect her to be a Joan of Arc,” said Councilman Marvin Braude, Galanter’s closest ally on the council, who broke from City Hall protocol and endorsed her against Russell. “The demands are beyond what any human being can deliver.”

Marcela Howell, Galanter’s former campaign manager and chief deputy, describes the criticism as the inevitable fallout of an election that brought together many dissimilar interests.

“One of the problems that comes from being fighters outside of the governmental structure for so long is that once you elect someone within that structure, you don’t necessarily know how to relate to them anymore,” Howell said. “Immediately the people you have elected become incumbents and you inherently have a distrust of incumbents.”

The grumblings about Galanter have erupted into heated debates over her performance among members of the Venice Town Council, a residents’ organization in which Galanter was active before the election. The president of the Town Council resigned in July amid complaints that she has been too supportive of Galanter’s approach to development, which has not closed the door to new building as many had hoped.

Other disaffected former Galanter supporters, some of whom live outside her district, have formed a small group called The Conscience of Ruth Galanter, which monitors her record on social issues. They complain about everything from her crackdown on the homeless at Venice Beach to the lack of curb cuts for wheelchairs.

In a recent interview, Galanter traced some of the dissatisfaction to the time she spent in the hospital. While she was struggling for her life, she said, volunteers and others were making her campaign into something it was never meant to be. Promises were made that could not be kept. And the media transformed her into a bigger-than-life underdog.

“I’ve found out what it’s like to be Cinderella and what it is like to be a symbol of all kinds of things,” she said, “some things based on inaccuracies.” In fact, Galanter did not make many specific promises during the campaign, focusing instead on general issues such as independence from special interests, accountability to residents and so-called quality-of-life matters. She also pledged to be tough on development, which has been interpreted by some to mean a cap on all new building.

Galanter commissioned an opinion poll in May to determine what “mid-course corrections” to make, and it showed that complaints about her record are not representative of feelings in her Westside district as whole, according to pollster John Fairbank of Fairbank, Bregman & Maullin.

The poll found that Galanter is still viewed as tough on development and concerned about people in her district, and showed that 72% of her constituents considered most likely to vote have a favorable impression of her. Pollsters interviewed 400 registered voters in the district, which includes Venice, Westchester, Mar Vista, Playa del Rey, Baldwin Hills and the Crenshaw area.

Even so, the insurrection has hit a nerve among some Galanter supporters who fear she is losing early battles in a public relations war against potential adversaries in the 1991 election.

Galanter emerged from a crowded field of candidates in the April, 1987, primary to take on Russell in the general election two months later. Halfway through the runoff campaign, she was stabbed in the neck by a burglar as she slept in her Venice home. She was hospitalized for seven weeks and released just in time to attend her swearing-in ceremony at City Hall in a wheelchair.

Many of Galanter’s current critics had supported other candidates in the primary, shifting to Galanter only after their candidates lost. Activist Cole said some of them are already looking for challengers to run in 1991.

Concerns in the Galanter camp have been heightened by speculation at City Hall that she has not been happy with her job and may not be interested in another term. Some council members and other city officials said the political realities of serving on the council--including the frustrations of dealing with a stubborn city bureaucracy--have hit Galanter hard, leaving her disillusioned because of her inability to make great strides on the environmental and planning issues she cares most about.

She also skips many of the receptions, award dinners, fund-raisers and other insider social events at City Hall that many of her colleagues regard as obligatory. Galanter has done virtually no fund raising since the election, leaving her political committee with only $6,000.

Signs of Distaste

“I wonder how much she likes her job,” said one council colleague, who asked not to be identified. “I have gotten indications that she has some distaste for the process here . . . that she found the job as council member really hasn’t turned out to be as productive as she had thought.”

Galanter acknowledged in the interview that her job has held its disappointments, but seemed annoyed by suggestions that she would consider leaving City Hall after one term. She said she will seek reelection, a decision that she had “been oozing toward” for months.

“I have been told a number of times never to play poker because . . . my feelings usually show on my face,” Galanter said. “People have said to me for a long time now, starting with when I was pretty weak, ‘You don’t look like you’re very happy. You don’t like this job, do you?’ And they say it in a way that sounds like a criticism, and I haven’t figured out what that’s all about. . . . You can’t tell me there isn’t anybody who one day, every once in a while, says ‘Why am I doing this?’ ”

Some of Galanter’s supporters are urging her to make herself more visible, to spend more time “kissing babies,” as one of them said, and to grandstand at council meetings--all of which come hard to the Yale-educated urban planner who is more comfortable working behind the scenes than in front of crowds.

“She is not a splashy person,” said Felicia Marcus, an environmentalist who has known Galanter since the late 1970s. “She is a quality person. She is not someone with a lifelong desire to be a politician.”

Even her own opinion poll points to the need for greater visibility. Respondents were generally unaware of what she is doing at City Hall, and it found, two years after the stabbing, that the incident was still one of the strongest images voters had of her.

Galanter said her reluctance to spend more time making speeches and “networking” at receptions and cocktail parties is based on practical rather than philosophical concerns. The knife attack permanently damaged her vocal chords, leaving her with a weak, raspy voice. She often is forced to interrupt conversations to clear her throat.

“Going to a large number of receptions is not something that turns me on, particularly in view of the fact that I physically cannot carry on a conversation with a high ambient noise level,” she said. “With my version of yelling in your ear, you could probably hear me, but it’s not the same kind of experience, and it’s also a constant reminder to me that there’s a piece of me missing.”

One of the most volatile issues of her short tenure has been her stance on development, which has come under attack from builders and homeowners alike. Last year, she was shouted down at a City Council meeting by an angry group of Venice property owners and developers opposed to proposed building restrictions there. The unusual public thrashing was so harsh that the council delayed a vote on the matter for two weeks.

But anti-growth residents complain about the same restrictions, saying that they are not tough enough. The Venice Town Council has called for a complete moratorium on building, which Galanter has refused to support.

‘Reasonable Limits’

Galanter describes her development philosophy as one of “managed growth” and says that she never promised to stop building, only to impose “reasonable limits.” She said that she has supported projects that she views as compatible with the community and that resolve parking and traffic problems. And she has used building restrictions as leverage to get concessions such as low-income housing from developers.

So far, her approach has been remarkably successful at Playa Vista in Westchester, probably the most controversial proposed development she inherited from Russell. Galanter had criticized plans for the 957-acre community when she was a candidate and refused to budge once she took office. The mammoth project came to symbolize Russell’s pro-development policies, and has been blamed for her defeat.

Galanter’s stance, as well as a local lawsuit, eventually led the Summa Corp. to sell an interest in the project to Maguire Thomas Partners, which is now working with Galanter and local residents on a new proposal. Although opposition remains, Galanter’s harshest critics acknowledge that she has made significant progress.

She has also taken the initiative on several environmental issues that she says do not grab headlines but will make life more bearable in Los Angeles for years to come. Environmentalists, who strongly supported her candidacy, say she has helped make the City Council more sensitive to concerns about pollution and conservation.

At Galanter’s urging, the city now requires ultra-low-flush toilets in new projects, and she has also required developers in her district to include trash recycling facilities in new projects. At City Hall, Galanter initiated a paper recycling program.

Some Allies Complain

But even some of Galanter’s allies in the environmental community complain that the councilwoman has yet to emerge as the high-profile leader they had expected.

“I wish that she would take more advantage of her position, which is one that could provide a tremendous leadership role in the city,” said Moe Stavnezer, president of the League of Conservation Voters. “But there is a learning curve, and she is probably still on the upward slope of that curve.”

Yes, Galanter acknowledges, she is still learning. But she offers no apologies for her performance thus far.

“The day I started the job, I didn’t know if I would be able to do anything,” she said. “What is surprising to me is, looking back at it, I can’t believe I actually did all those things.”