Galanter Calls Victory a Vindication : Election: Councilwoman says her one-sided win indicates support for her growth-control policies. Her opponent blames ‘mudslinging’ and lack of campaign funds for loss.

Buoyed by an election in which she received more than double her opponent’s vote, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter said Wednesday that the results are a vindication of her oft-criticized efforts to manage growth in her Westside district.

Galanter, first elected four years ago on a wave of anti-growth sentiment, had come under heavy attack during the current campaign from foes who claimed that she had permitted too much development.

The day after she drubbed challenger Mary Lee Gray, Galanter pledged to carry on with several themes from her first term--that new construction is inevitable but can be controlled, that the growth of Los Angeles International Airport must be restricted, and that the economically depressed Crenshaw District needs more development.

Gray had accused Galanter of being weak, or slow to act, on all those issues.

But Galanter, calling her victory a “rout,” said: “I would like to believe I won because most people like my policies and the work that I have done.”

Gray, an aide to Los Angeles County Supervisor Deane Dana, had hoped that Galanter would take the brunt of a voter backlash against construction in the 6th District, which includes Venice, Mar Vista, Westchester, Playa del Rey and the Crenshaw District.

But with all but one of the district’s 189 precincts counted Wednesday, Galanter had 17,137 votes, or 69.3%, to Gray’s 7,574, or 30.7%.

The campaign drew only moderate voter interest. Just under 25% of the district’s voters went to the polls Tuesday, well above the citywide rate of 17.8%. But the total of 25,000 votes cast in the race was a full third less than in the 1987 election that saw Galanter unseat longtime Councilwoman Pat Russell.

Coming off a primary in which she received 49% of the vote against six challengers, Galanter needed only about 200 additional votes Tuesday to win a second term. She ended up with 5,233 more than she received in the primary, while Gray picked up just 2,645 above her primary total.

An informal survey of voters leaving polling places found few expressing the type of strong discontent with Galanter that Gray needed to fuel her upset bid.

Although many gave Galanter credit for her accomplishments--several voters in the Crenshaw District, for instance, praised her for a plan that is bringing a new supermarket to the neighborhood--others said they simply had no outstanding complaints against the councilwoman.

“I don’t know that Galanter isn’t doing the right thing for the environment,” said Timmie Perstein of Westchester. “That’s an important issue for me. She was backed by the Sierra Club and the Friends of Ballona Wetlands. Since I’ve been too busy to check it out myself, those endorsements were important.”

Caroline Davis, a hairdresser from the Crenshaw District, echoed the comments of several voters. She said she considered voting for Gray, “but I just didn’t know enough about her. . . . So I thought it was worth giving Galanter another chance.”

Galanter, 50, said that despite being forced into a runoff, she did not see any message from voters to change her policies.

“No,” she said, “I’m not repudiating anything I’ve done.”

The councilwoman said her only lesson from the election is to promote herself and her policies more vigorously. “What we ended up doing in the campaign was getting out information that we had hoped was already out there,” Galanter said.

In the early morning hours Wednesday after the final votes had been counted, Gray cut into what was supposed to have been her victory cake--the pink frosting congratulated “Our Councilwoman”--and blamed her defeat on voter apathy, a lack of campaign funds and “mudslinging” by Galanter.

Gray, also 50, said voters may have had trouble visualizing, or being concerned about, large development projects because they are still on the drawing boards.

She said she did not have enough campaign money to send out districtwide mailers detailing her experience, including service as a deputy to three county supervisors. The most recent campaign reports, filed for the period from March 24 until May 18, were typical of the entire campaign. Galanter brought in more than $143,000, more than three times what Gray collected.

A series of late mailers from the Galanter campaign brought out Gray’s mudslinging charge.

One accused Gray of “Fraud” and another of “The Big Lie” for paying her way onto slate mailers that pictured her along with several Democratic candidates under the headline “Your Democratic Team.”

Gray is a Republican. She was running in a district where Democrats hold nearly a 3-1 advantage.

Another mailer charged that Gray accepted a “personal gift” from Summa Corp., once the proposed developer of the massive Playa Vista project near Marina del Rey. Yet another mailer, which went to the mostly black Crenshaw District, said, “Gray thinks (Police Chief Daryl F.) Gates should stay.”

Gray blasted these mailers as unfair or inaccurate. The Mar Vista resident said her party affiliation was irrelevant in the nonpartisan race. She said the “gift” from Summa was merely sitting at a table the company paid for at a fund-raising event. And Gray said she had never advocated that Gates be left on the job, instead taking a position similar to Galanter’s--that further review of the chief’s performance is needed.

Galanter defended her mailers. “I can support everything that is in them,” she said. “I just tried to point out what her record was, and every time I did, she seemed to get mad.”

Long after midnight, while many of her supporters hung their heads glumly, Gray maintained the den-mother cheeriness that characterized her campaign. She personally served “victory” cake and thanked supporters.

But she said she is not sure if she will run again.

“The sad commentary is that the political system is geared toward incumbency,” Gray said. “And unless you can raise large sums of money, you can’t defeat an incumbent.”

Galanter was able to relax Election Night, as the first returns showed her headed for an easy victory. She wore jeans and a T-shirt and even broke away from the election party hubbub to an office where she talked to aides and worked on a crossword puzzle.

She called her second election even more satisfying that her first, which she won while hospitalized after being stabbed in her home by a burglar. “I was there the whole way this time,” Galanter said. “I felt the direction of the campaign was more in my hands than the last time.”

6TH DISTRICT

188 of 189 Precincts Reporting

Ruth Galanter ** 17,137 69.34 Mary Lee Gray 7,574 30.65