Racial Tensions Overshadow Voting for Council : Issues: Gates controversy and economic development are key factors in 6th District contest.

Sandy Tufts works in downtown Los Angeles, but she gave up her lunch hour Tuesday to drive across town to her home in the Crenshaw area so she could vote for Mary Lee Gray for City Council.

Tufts, who is black, said these are tough times for African-Americans in Los Angeles, and she wanted to register her outrage. Gray was one of five black candidates running in the largely white 6th District against Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, who is white.

“Racial tensions are very high right now,” said Tufts, standing outside a freshly painted home in a well-to-do neighborhood near Leimert Park. “I am old enough to remember the Watts riots and how bad things were in those days. It is just as bad.”

Voters across Los Angeles trickled to the polls Tuesday to select members for eight council seats in an election that historians may recount more for its volatile racial backdrop than its effect on any of the city’s mounting urban woes.

Nowhere was the tension more evident than in the predominantly black Crenshaw area of the 6th District, the only contest where a white incumbent faced a substantial threat from black challengers. Here, the police beating of Rodney G. King and dozens of vacant storefronts have reminded many African-Americans that racial and economic equality in Los Angeles are still distant dreams.

Many Crenshaw voters cast their ballots for Galanter, and many against her. For the first time in years, they went to the polls with the issue of race on their mind. Clean streets, trimmed trees and smoothed potholes were important, but so was Police Chief Daryl F. Gates and how whites and blacks in Los Angeles get along.

“It doesn’t matter who I voted for, just that I voted against Galanter,” one angry black voter said as he stormed out of the kitchen-turned-polling-place at the Church of Christ on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. “She hasn’t made any strong statements against Gates. That man has set us back 20 years in race relations. He has done more damage to this city than anyone else.”

Others at the polls said Galanter has done enough during the controversy to earn support in the black community. They pointed to her vote last week against reinstatement of Gates after the Police Commission relieved him of his duties. Otherwise, she has kept a low profile on the issue, attempting to strike a political balance in a multiracial district that extends from wealthy beach communities near Marina del Rey to struggling inner-city neighborhoods.

“She can’t afford to do anything different,” said Jeanette O’Conner, who cast her vote for Galanter at the Bethany Baptist Church, about half a mile from the struggling Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw Plaza shopping mall. “The district runs from one extreme to the other. She is playing her cards right. In fact, I admire her for it.”

It has not been an easy balance to strike anywhere in the city. The King beating has divided public opinion and has thrust the political establishment into civil war. It was no different in the living rooms, church halls, classrooms and storefronts that were polling places Election Day.

At Bethany Baptist Church, the No. 1 topic of conversation among voters was Galanter’s vote on Gates’ reinstatement. The yellow-brick church, once a Jewish synagogue, houses polling places for two precincts. Mary Lee Gray has a campaign office across the street.

“This Gates thing has really saved Galanter in this neighborhood,” said Jacquelyn Williams, a polling inspector. “People are coming in and asking what way Galanter voted on the Gates issue. Once they find out, they vote the straight Democratic ticket, which includes Galanter.”

Eldridge Dickerson, a retired Navy electrician in a white safari hat and matching shoes, emerged from the polling place into the hot afternoon sun with a strong belief that Galanter would win. He said he voted for the councilwoman to send a message to City Hall that Gates must go. Her opposition to the chief may have been muted, he said, but it has been stronger than most of her City Council colleagues.

“The main idea is to get Gates out of there,” Dickerson said. “The only person who has come out strongly against Gates is (Councilman Michael) Woo. But Galanter has spoken up, and we need to help her.”

Arthur Brown, a retired broadcast engineer, followed Dickerson to the polls, slowly climbing the church steps with his silver cane. Dickerson, 63, had never voted in an election, but he decided that the time was right to exercise his civic duty.

It was not the police beating, or even the empty storefronts in the Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw Plaza that got Brown into the polling booth. Brown said he did not even know where Galanter and her six opponents stood on the controversial police chief or the issue of economic development in the Crenshaw area.

His message was far simpler.

“I voted for Gray,” he said. “I just decided we might as well try someone else. It certainly can’t be any worse.”

As Brown limped down Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard on his way home, he said his journey to the polls was meant as a tribute to the man whose name appeared on the road sign above his head.

“He said that we had better shape up,” Brown said.