Blacks Also Set Sights on Galanter’s Council Seat : Politics: Although many African-Americans are jockeying in Lindsay, Farrell districts, others turn toward 6th. They hope to attract enough whites’ votes to force incumbent into runoff.

While many of Los Angeles’ black political hopefuls jockey for City Council seats left open by Gilbert W. Lindsay’s death and Robert Farrell’s decision not to seek reelection, an array of African-American candidates have set their sights on another prize--the 6th District post held by Ruth Galanter.

Although blacks are not a majority in the 6th District and its voters have never elected a black City Council representative, seven of the 12 running against Galanter are African-Americans. Some political observers contend that one or more could be formidable opponents for the one-term Galanter if they can forge the kind of multiracial coalition that elected Mayor Tom Bradley 17 years ago.

“What they have to do is to maximize black (voters’) participation without ignoring the whites,” said political consultant Joseph Cerrell. “All things being equal, people will vote the issues.”

Cerrell and others said the number of black contenders merely reflects the unusually large field of candidates seeking to push Galanter into a runoff in April and then oust her in June. They believe that her political base has eroded to a point where she is ripe for an upset.

Galanter says she is confident of being reelected and that the 6th District is just showing off its politically active personality.

“My district has more activists per square inch than any other district in the city,” the councilwoman said. “There are more different opinions than in any other district.”

Galanter said that in the past, 6th District races did not attract many candidates because her predecessor, 17-year incumbent Pat Russell, the council’s president, had been considered unbeatable.

Overall, the 6th district is 44% Anglo and 33% black. Latinos make up 16.8% of the district, but are not considered a significant factor in its electoral politics. One Latino activist, businessman Michael Del Rio of Venice, has filed for candidacy.

The largest concentration of African-American voters lives in the district’s eastern portion, known as the Crenshaw-Baldwin Hills area, one of the most affluent and politically sophisticated black enclaves in the nation. Political experts say that a strong turnout there could give a black candidate enough votes to force a runoff.

The black candidates acknowledge that they cannot win without substantial white support and say they will campaign hard in such communities as Westchester, Playa del Rey and Venice, which have huge majorities of white voters.

Few observers are ready to speculate about which of Galanter’s challengers might prove the strongest--all of them must collect a minimum of 500 signatures by Saturday and pay a $300 filing fee to make their candidacies official in the April 9 primary.

Among the best known black candidates are Mary Lee Gray, a deputy to Los Angeles County Supervisor Deane Dana, and Tavis Smiley, a former aide to Mayor Bradley. Both candidates have been lining up supporters and raising money for months.

To shape her campaign, Gray has hired Orange County-based consultant Harvey Englander, who managed Mike Woo’s 1985 ouster of veteran Councilwoman Peggy Stevenson.

“People have been saying lately that blacks should be concerned that they won’t be able to hold onto the (City Council) seats they have now,” said Gray. “My reaction to that is, ‘Aren’t we qualified to run in any area?’ ”

Although most of the black candidates have their support in the Crenshaw-Baldwin Hills area, Gray is an exception. As a deputy to the conservative Dana, the Republican Gray is well known in the district’s predominantly white areas.

“I think her support here (in Westchester) is very strong,” said community activist Curt Curtiss, a former honorary Westchester mayor who is white. “She has developed over the years an excellent reputation for getting things done.”

Other candidates--including Smiley--argue that Gray’s conservative credentials will hurt her in a district that is roughly two-thirds Democratic, even though council races are nonpartisan.

“Those voters,” Smiley said, “are not going to vote for a Republican.”

Smiley, who resigned from the mayor’s staff last month to focus on the 6th District race, said he does not consider Gray or any of the other African-American candidates his opponents. He said he will campaign only against Galanter, hoping that the large field of candidates will prevent her from winning outright in the primary.

Smiley, like other candidates interviewed, noted that some 6th District residents who supported Galanter in 1987, when she toppled Russell, are now her most vocal critics--including community activist Pearl White, another black running for the council.

Those critics, black and white, allege that Galanter has become autocratic, insensitive to the concerns of the majority of district residents and, in the district’s west side, a tool of developers. Critics in the Crenshaw-Baldwin Hills area, many of whom supported neither Russell nor Galanter in 1987, accuse the councilwoman of not promoting enough development and of virtually ignoring other concerns.

Steve Schlein, a Venice resident who describes himself as a controlled-growth activist, said Galanter “engages in piecemeal project-by-project approvals without any unifying theme whatsoever.” Schlein supported Galanter in 1987.

In the Crenshaw area, Galanter came under fire recently after the disclosure that she had refused to support a proposal from Manhattan Beach developer Alexander Haagen that some hoped would bring an IKEA furniture store and perhaps a Nordstrom department store to a site across the street from the troubled Crenshaw-Baldwin Hills Mall.

In Westchester, she has been blamed for plans to build residences on the Westchester Bluffs.

Defending herself, Galanter points to several citizen-operated planning advisory boards she formed to screen development proposals. Those boards, she says, frequently require developers to scale back projects.

“I have in fact made significant reductions and changes in development,” she said. “It’s disappointing that so many people have not recognized that.”

Of the IKEA proposal, Galanter contends that she was swayed by business owners in the Santa Barbara Plaza--a shopping strip near the Crenshaw-Baldwin Hills Mall--who, she said, would have been displaced to accommodate IKEA.

“I am enormously committed to development in the Crenshaw District,” Galanter said.

Galanter said that when critics call her unresponsive, what that really means is: “I didn’t agree with them.”

In addition to Gray, Smiley, Del Rio and White, others who have filed to run against Galanter are:

* Janet Bowman, a Baldwin Hills-area educational consultant.

* Rex Frankel, a Westchester environmental activist.

* Eric Johnson, a Leimert Park businessman.

* Salvatore Grammatico, a real estate agent and community activist who lives just south of Culver City.

* Donald Conkrite, a Los Angeles Fire Department inspector and resident of the Hyde Park area.

* Charles Mattison, a Baldwin Hills dentist.

* Mervin Evans, a Playa del Rey business consultant.

* Matthew Olds, a Crenshaw district lawyer.