CITY COUNCIL ELECTIONS 6TH DISTRICT : Galanter-Gray Environmental Debate Low Key : Politics: The high point is the challenger’s decision to appear before a hostile audience.

The high point of the 6th District City Council candidates’ forum on Tuesday came before the first question was asked.

That’s because no one was sure whether challenger Mary Lee Gray would be there until she walked in the door.

Gray had been involved in a wrangle with the environmental groups sponsoring the event over debate rules that she said were skewed in favor of incumbent City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter.

During an afternoon FAX flurry on Tuesday, debate organizers said the event would go on without Gray after she advised media outlets that she might not attend.

Gray is trying to unseat Galanter in the June 4 election in a district that covers Westchester, Mar Vista, Playa del Rey, Venice and Crenshaw.

Galanter is a longtime insider in the environmental movement, and many of those involved in the debate support her.

Ruth Lansford, president of Friends of Ballona Wetlands, denied favoritism and noted how many rules debate organizers had changed to accommodate Gray’s concerns.

In her opening statement, Gray said the rules were “skewed by innuendo, lack of communication and a sense of prejudice.” She said the entire event had been arranged to show Galanter in her best light.

But Gray told the audience that she had attended every scheduled forum since announcing her candidacy and had come to this one despite her misgivings in order to make her views known to the public.

Gray objected to a rule that limited questions to environmental issues only, and to a provision that allowed candidates a rebuttal. Gray did succeed in getting a moderator of her liking, Rusty Kostick of the League of Women Voters.

At the end of the evening, Kostick praised Gray for her decision to appear before an audience that she believed would be hostile to her. Galanter retorted that as a public official, she has to do that all the time.

The debate was mostly low key and technical, with the candidates sitting at the same small table, handing a microphone back and forth--unusually close contact for them.

For the most part, the audience was polite, but Galanter was clearly in her element, while Gray stumbled over some words. Afterward, Gray said she was not nervous but tired.

Gray got an unwanted guffaw from the crowd when she promised to stay in touch with her constituents by answering her own phone eight hours a week.

Though Gray had clearly prepared herself on environmental issues, she was no match for Galanter’s expertise. But Gray said that by attending the debate, she had turned around what could have been a media carnival.

She charged that Galanter deputy Rick Ruiz was trying to round up TV news crews to show her expected absence. None materialized, and Ruiz denied the charge.