Bradley Endorses Walters in Race for Lindsay Seat : Election: Her main rival, Bob Gay, criticizes the school board member for her recent move into the 9th District.

Mayor Tom Bradley on Tuesday endorsed Rita Walters, a member of the Los Angeles Board of Education, in the highly contested fight for the 9th District City Council seat left open by the death of longtime Councilman Gilbert Lindsay.

Walters is among 26 candidates who have declared their intention to run for the seat in the April 9 election. Only a handful of candidates are expected to gather sufficient signatures for valid nominating petitions, due at the city clerk’s office by 5 p.m. today. Walters’ toughest opponent in the race is expected to be Bob Gay, 37, who served as Lindsay’s deputy for 15 years and has been laying the groundwork for a run at the 9th District seat for several years. A fundamentalist Christian minister, Gay said Tuesday that he has the support of a wide range of religious leaders.

Walters, 60, first was elected to the school board in 1979 and is its only black member. A veteran of the district’s desegregation battles, she believes black students have been shortchanged and has tangled often with many of the other board members.

A former adult-school teacher and the mother of three grown children, she is widely known in Los Angeles’ black community and in local education circles.

At a news conference, Bradley said Walters’ leadership “has been demonstrated time and again.”

A key issue in the race is expected to be the rundown condition of much of the 9th District, which encompasses the revitalized and bustling downtown as well as the slums of South-Central Los Angeles.

Both Gay and Walters have pledged to focus attention on the blighted areas.

Walters moved into the 9th District less than a month ago and was forced to file a lawsuit in federal court to win the right to run despite a 30-day residency requirement.

“She’s going to have to spend a substantial amount of time trying to explain to people why she did not want to live next to them until now,” Gay said Tuesday.

Walters rejected Gay’s charge, saying that, as a school board member, she has represented 80% of the 9th District for over a decade. She said she has not decided whether to sell her home in the 10th District. Walters moved out of her home on Jan. 9 and lives with an aunt on 55th Street.

So far, only Gay and two other candidates have won places on the ballot. Several others have filed nominating petitions, but the signatures are still being verified. By court order, Walters has another week to gather and file petitions.

Community activist Charles David Henry has qualified for the ballot, as has Michael Schaefer, a former slumlord assessed $1.83 million in damages in a civil case.

Others expected to be contenders are Brad Pye Jr., assistant chief deputy for county Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, who recently endorsed him; Woodrow Fleming, a labor activist who is working for state Sen. Art Torres in his campaign for the 1st District county supervisor’s seat; Leon A. Watkins, an anti-gang activist and director of the Family Help Line for relatives of gang members, and Joseph Abraham Hubbard Jr., a community activist.