Council Results to Alter L.A. Political Landscape : Voting: Races will test strength of Mayor Bradley and his allies and show which way the wind is blowing on development issue. The public will also decide on five city ballot measures.

Voters in five Los Angeles City Council districts face choices on Tuesday that will help reshape political alignments in the city and refocus a longstanding debate on the future of growth and development.

Mayor Tom Bradley, whose support has been waning on the council, has endorsed two newcomers, Mark Ridley-Thomas and Rita Walters, who could be important Bradley allies in the coming year as the mayor decides whether to run for an unprecedented sixth term in 1993.

“I don’t think the mayor can rely on the council as he has in the past,” council President John Ferraro said last week. “If his candidates win, it would give him more power on the council . . . and it would certainly mean some obligation on their part to the mayor.”

For two incumbents, the election may be a referendum on development. Both Councilman Hal Bernson, who represents the 12th District in the northern San Fernando Valley, and Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, who represents the 6th District near Los Angeles International Airport, have been attacked by challengers who portray the incumbents as too pro-growth.

Also on the ballot in the 1st District is a primary election that is expected to narrow a large field of candidates vying to replace Gloria Molina, who left the council after her election as the first Latino member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

An array of ballot measures, including a controversial City Charter change that would increase the council’s power and a $299-million bond issue to fund park improvements, face voters citywide.

For Bradley, an important test of his political strength comes in the 9th District, where he has thrown his support behind Walters, a Los Angeles school board member and Bradley ally. Bradley is said to dislike her opponent, Bob Gay, a longtime deputy to the late Councilman Gilbert Lindsay, whose death in December opened up the 9th District seat after 27 years.

The race began in January with a focus on Lindsay’s record and allegations that the councilman and his staff neglected South-Central neighborhoods in the 9th District while pushing development in the downtown business area.

But in recent weeks, the Walters-Gay contest has turned into a bitter, mudslinging fight, and the mayor’s efforts on behalf of Walters may have backfired.

Gay has seized upon reports that top aides in the mayor’s office held briefing sessions for Walters and used city equipment and computers to aid her campaign. Bradley quietly reprimanded six aides, including Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani, and the Los Angeles Police Department opened a criminal investigation into the matter.

Gay called the mayor’s action a “slap on the wrist” and demanded that Walters withdraw from the race. He has repeatedly cited the assistance from Bradley’s office as evidence that Walters knows little about the issues facing the 9th District. Walters moved into the 9th District about two weeks after Lindsay died.

Last week, Walters fired back, calling for an investigation of a $10,000 trip Gay took to Hong Kong, Paris and China in 1987 that was paid for by Hong Kong developer Howard Yeung, who wanted to build a huge hotel and office complex in the 9th District.

Gay has repeatedly said that he never took a gift from anyone with a project pending in the 9th District. But Walters’ campaign produced a document last week that indicates Yeung drew up plans for the project more than a year before the trip. And another Lindsay aide, Sal Altamirano, said Gay had attended meetings about the project, which eventually fell through for financial reasons.

Gay could not be reached for comment on Altamirano’s statement, but he said earlier, “Rita’s obviously throwing this out in the last stages of the campaign to take the attention away from what she did.”

Whatever the results of the 9th District contest, analysts and council members predict that a more vigorous voice for the black community will emerge to replace the ailing Lindsay, who was 90 at the time of his death.

A new black leader also will emerge from the race in the nearby 8th District, where Councilman Robert Farrell decided to step down after 17 years. Ridley-Thomas, on leave as director of the Los Angeles office of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, emerged from the April primary along with Roderick Wright, a political consultant.

The contests in the 8th and 9th districts may be tests of the strength of Bradley and U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), who have chosen sides in both races. The mayor endorsed Walters and Ridley-Thomas, while the congresswoman backed Gay and Wright.

Both Ridley-Thomas and Wright have focused throughout the primary and runoff campaigns on the issue of improving basic city services for the 8th District. Each has called for the removal of Police Chief Daryl F. Gates in the aftermath of the police beating of Rodney G. King, but Ridley-Thomas has been more visible on the issue, appearing at press conferences for the SCLC, which intervened in the suit to put Gates on leave.

In the closing days of the campaign, each also has begun vigorous attacks on the other. Ridley-Thomas has raised the issue of a 1985 no-contest plea by Wright to a misdemeanor election fraud charge in a 1985 Compton City Council campaign. Wright is responding with a stepped up attack on Ridley-Thomas for his close connections to Farrell, who endorsed Ridley-Thomas.

In the 6th District, the development issue that cost Galanter an outright victory in the April primary continues to dog her in the runoff contest with Mary Lee Gray, a senior deputy to County Supervisor Deane Dana. Galanter rode an anti-development wave four years ago to an upset victory over then-Council President Pat Russell, but Gray and others have attacked her for allegedly drifting too far from her anti-growth roots. The attacks have been bolstered by campaign reports that show many of the city’s major developers and lobbyists have switched positions on Galanter and now raise money for her.

Galanter has countercharged that Gray, a deputy to the conservative Dana, is herself too pro-development and anti-environment.

A similar ideological battle continues in the 12th District, where incumbent Councilman Bernson was forced into a runoff with Julie Korenstein, a Los Angeles School Board member whose campaign has been based on opposition to Bernson’s support of the vast Porter Ranch development.

Korenstein has attacked the project and the traffic congestion it will bring as an “environmental catastrophe.”

After largely ignoring Korenstein along with the other primary candidates, Bernson has taken a different tack in the runoff. Recognizing that 12th District voters are generally conservative in their politics, Bernson has emphasized that Korenstein has strong liberal Democratic ties and was a Jesse Jackson delegate at the 1984 Democratic National Convention. (Records indicate that Korenstein sought election as a Jackson delegate, but failed to win.)

To further highlight the political contrast, Bernson has enlisted the endorsement and help of Police Chief Gates, who is under fire from some liberal groups and factions in the city because of the King affair.

In the 1st District, on the city’s Eastside, a special primary election will narrow a field of six relatively unknown candidates vying to replace the popular Molina.

Molina has endorsed a longtime supporter, Mike Hernandez, a Cypress Park insurance agent, who she said had a “history of commitment to the community.”

Also running are Sandra Figueroa, executive director of an Echo Park social service agency; Frank Juarez Foster, an affordable-housing advocate; Caesar Kenneth Aguirre, a financial consultant; Sharon Mee Yung Lowe, an attorney, and Maria Elizabeth Munoz, an elementary schoolteacher.

The citywide ballot contains five measures:

* Proposition 1, a $298.8-million bond measure to pay for an array of recreational and cultural facilities and improvements throughout the city. The measure would cost the average homeowner an additional $13.20 a year in property taxes for 20 years.

* Proposition 2, a graffiti removal and prevention tax that would add 10 cents to the cost of each aerosol paint container sold in the city and five cents to the cost of each broad-tipped permanent felt marker.

* Charter Amendment 3, a change that would allow for the removal of an incapacitated elected official.

* Charter Amendment 4, a measure that would broaden the city’s anti-apartheid rules by extending its provisions to independent departments, including the airport and harbor departments and the Department of Water and Power.

* Charter Amendment 5, a measure that would allow the City Council to review and overrule decisions of city commissions. Bradley strongly opposes the measure, saying it would weaken the authority and autonomy of the commissions he appoints. However, he mistakenly signed the proposal and failed to keep it off the ballot through a legal challenge.

L.A. City Council Districts

Runoff elections will be held Tuesday in the 6th, 8th, 9th, and 12th districts. A primary will be held in the 1st district.