27 Declare Intent to Seek Seats on Council : City Hall: Competition seems strongest in three of the eight districts on the ballot. Galanter has nine challengers, Bernson five.

Twenty-seven candidates declared their intention to run for Los Angeles City Council seats Wednesday as filing opened for the April 9 primary election.

Competition appeared strongest in three districts: the 6th, where nine contenders are attempting to unseat one-term incumbent Ruth Galanter; the 8th, where six candidates filed for the seat now held by Robert Farrell, who has said he will not run, and the 12th, where incumbent Hal Bernson faces five contenders.

Council seats in eight of the city’s 15 districts will be on the April ballot, including the one vacated two weeks ago with the death of 90-year-old Gilbert Lindsay. Filing for Lindsay’s 9th District seat opens on Jan. 18.

In the 6th District, which includes the area around Los Angeles International Airport, the challengers to Galanter are: J. Wilson Bowman; Marilyn K. Cole, a community activist; Michael Anthony del Rio; Rex Keith Frankel, vice president of the grass-roots Coalition of Concerned Communities; Salvatore Grammatico, a realtor and community activist; Mary Lee Gray, senior deputy to Los Angeles County Supervisor Deane Dana; Matthew L. Olds, an attorney; Tavis Eugene Smiley, a former aide to Mayor Tom Bradley, and Pearl E. White, a community activist.

Candidates for South-Central Los Angeles’ 8th District seat are: Jonathan Leonard; Martin G. Ludlow, a union business agent; Billy Mills Jr., son of former Councilman Billy Mills; Norma Celestine Mena, a business consultant; Cornelius A. Pettus, and Mark Ridley-Thomas, executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Los Angeles.

In the north San Fernando Valley’s 12th District, filers are: incumbent Bernson; Robert A. Birch, a community activist who has opposed the district’s huge Porter Ranch development; Allen Robert Hecht, a printer and Bernson appointee to the city’s Solid Waste Advisory Group; Arthur (Larry) Kagele, a Los Angeles Police Department detective; Walter N. Prince, a janitorial service owner who led a failed recall drive against Bernson, and Leonard Shapiro, a City Council critic who attends and speaks at most council meetings.

No challengers filed to oppose 2nd District incumbent Joel Wachs, 4th District incumbent John Ferraro or 10th District incumbent Nate Holden, all of whom filed for reelection.

In the 14th District, incumbent Richard Alatorre faces a challenge from businessman John Lucero, who was active in a recent recall effort launched against Alatorre.

Filing closes at 5 p.m. Monday, except for the 9th District, where filing runs from Jan. 18-24.