ELECTIONS / CITY COUNCIL : Six Candidates Seek a Runoff With Galanter : Politics: The 6th District incumbent has a big edge in fund raising and has spent much on mailings. A good chunk of her funds has come from developers.

Six challengers will gang up on Los Angeles City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter on Tuesday, attempting to deny her a second term representing the Westside’s 6th District.

Galanter’s chief opponents--based on money raised, endorsements and campaign activity--appear to be Mary Lee Gray, on leave from her job as senior deputy to county Supervisor Deane Dana, and Tavis Smiley, former aide to Mayor Tom Bradley.

Realtor Salvatore Grammatico, business consultant Mervin Evans, college administrator J. Wilson Bowman and dentist and minister Charles Mattison round out the field.

Galanter is widely expected to lead the pack in Tuesday’s City Council election, but the challengers hope to keep her percentage of the vote under 50%, necessitating a runoff in June against whoever finishes second.

Two other council incumbents whose districts include portions of the Westside also are up for reelection, but they are not expected to have any difficulty. In the 4th District, which includes Hancock Park and parts of Fairfax, Council President John Ferraro is unopposed. In the 10th District, which includes the Mid-City area, Councilman Nate Holden has a single, under-financed challenger, Esther M. Lofton.

In the 6th District, which includes Venice, Westchester, Mar Vista and the Crenshaw area, the concerns in the waning days of the campaign have about been money, mail and mischief as the candidates scramble for position and attempt to light a fire under voters.

Money: The numbers tell the story here, with incumbent Galanter, just four years after being elected on a shoestring budget, amassing $157,581 in contributions, including more than $84,000 in the bank before the campaign started. Smiley has raised $44,598, while Gray, who pledged not to take developer money, raised $54,868. The figures are for contributions reported through March 23.

A respectable chunk of Galanter’s kitty has come from developers, lobbyists and other City Hall players, causing challengers to charge she has strayed far from her grass-roots political origins.

Galanter has a stated policy of not taking contributions from developers with a controversial project pending in her district.

In the campaign’s final days, questions arose about whether she breached that policy by accepting $3,000 from one development firm, the Casden Co. The contributions came in $500 chunks from the company’s top executives, according to the most recently filed campaign statements.

The developers plan to build a 624-unit apartment complex on the Centinela Drive-In site near Westchester, with 20% of the units set aside as affordable housing. The developers have gained initial approval from the City Council to apply for $85 million in low-interest city bond financing, but have not moved beyond that step, according to Ralph Esparza of the city housing department. Esparza said two more votes by the City Council would be required to complete the financing.

The developers did not return repeated phone calls about the status of their project, while Galanter’s press secretary, Rick Ruiz, said accepting the money does not violate Galanter’s own rules because the project itself has been approved and is not controversial.

Mail: Bowman sat in her living room with friends and family last week hand-addressing campaign mailers. And during a telephone interview, Smiley had to compete with the loud noise of a machine collating brochures.

Mail is a critical way to reach voters, particularly in relatively low-profile local races. But mail costs money, and Galanter has been spending hers on it, flooding parts of the district.

Much of it has emphasized her endorsement by the Police Protective League, which represents rank-and-file police officers. Backing by the league during the uproar over the beating of Rodney King may be a double-edged sword, however--particularly in the predominantly black Crenshaw-Baldwin Hills area, where the sense of outrage over the beating is especially strong.

Smiley said his lack of money has forced him to scale back on plans to send a final mailer to the entire district. Now it is going to Crenshaw-Baldwin Hills only. Gray, similarly strapped for funds, was likewise unable to mount a major mail campaign, and instead scheduled a “whistle-stop” get-out-the-vote tour of the district in a vintage fire truck this weekend, with rallies planned at several spots.

Mischief: Someone has been stealing Gray’s signs by the score, including the huge one on her own lawn. She said she got home in the middle of the night from her campaign office; by dawn all the signs for blocks were missing.

The Galanter campaign, meanwhile, wants everyone to know that Smiley didn’t register to vote in the council campaign four years ago and that Gray hasn’t lived in the district very long, though she has served it for many years as an aide to Dana. Smiley said he had not registered because he was waiting to see if he could get a permanent place on the mayor’s staff. If not, he would have returned to Indiana, where he attended college.

Also, there have been charges and countercharges between Galanter and Gray about the use of the county car and city employees. All of the accused deny any impropriety.

And so the campaigns churn.

* CANDIDATES RESPOND

The seven council candidates respond to questions on the pressing issues in the district. J6