ELECTION PREVIEW : Growth, Planning Split Candidates : * Some are calling for a more bold approach to help the city’s struggling economy. The April 14 election will fill 3 seats.

Six people have officially entered the race for a seat on the Culver City Council.

Incumbents James D. Boulgarides and Steven Gourley, former Culver City Councilman Richard Alexander, and community activists Albert Vera, Mollie (Lee) Welinsky and Donald Lane met Tuesday’s deadline for filing nomination papers with the city clerk.

Voters will decide who will fill three open seats on the five-member council on Election Day, April 14. Mayor Paul A. Jacobs is not running for reelection.

While where the candidates stand on issues will become clearer as campaigning progresses, they can be roughly divided into two groups: those who favor slow, careful planning with a maximum of input from residents--Boulgarides and Gourley--and those who favor a faster approach that will stimulate the city’s struggling economy--Alexander and Vera.

Gourley and Boulgarides were often allies against the council majority on development projects, such as the proposed Marina Place regional mall.

Gourley, who was elected to his first term in 1988, said his main objective is to listen to what residents want and carry out their wishes. He supports developing an overall development plan for the city.

Boulgarides, who served from 1972 to 1980 and was elected again in 1988, said all his decisions are based on a desire to maintain a high standard of living in Culver City. He favors careful study that will ensure that all projects maintain a balance between open space, traffic and development.

Vera and Alexander say the incumbents have taken caution too far. They say Culver City has developed a reputation in recent years of being downright unfriendly to business, resulting in longtime Culver City businesses leaving and potential new businesses going to other cities.

“By losing businesses,” Vera said, “we are creating a terrible condition for the residents of Culver City. If you don’t have businesses, you don’t have a means to pay for city services.” Vera has owned and operated Sorrento’s Italian Market on Sepulveda Boulevard for 20 years.

Alexander, who served on the City Council from 1974 to 1980, agrees that businesses are largely unappreciated and must be saved because of the tax revenue they generate for the city.

“We are in competition with Los Angeles for our businesses,” said Alexander, an engineering consultant. “I think we can cut through some of the bureaucracy, without compromising our standards, and save those businesses.”

The major issue the council will face is where to cut services and how to raise revenue to meet budget shortfalls projected for the next several years.

Early projections already show a $2.5 million to $3-million deficit for fiscal year 1992-93, according to the city’s director of finance, Robert Norquist. The shortfalls are due to shrinking sales tax dollars and the real estate slump, he said.

Welinsky appears to lean toward the slow-growth camp. Her support of the 56-foot height limit passed by voters in April, 1990, is one of the things that got her into the race.

Although drafters of the initiative measure intended the four-story limit to cover all areas in the city, they missed a legal loophole in the city code that exempts 30% of city land from the law--the three redevelopment project areas. Welinsky, who recently graduated from law school and passed the California State Bar, believes that the law should be interpreted as it was intended.

The height limit will be a big issue during campaigns, as will the multimillion-dollar expansion plans proposed by Sony Pictures Studios. The plans, which will come under public scrutiny when the Environmental Impact Report is released late February or early March, include two 11-story office buildings.

Lane, a relative newcomer to Culver City politics, said he supports the 56-foot height limit. But although he favors controlled growth, he said he is definitely pro-development.

Lane, 43, was a police chief in small cities in Arizona, Nebraska and Illinois before retiring to become a consultant for law-enforcement agencies. He holds a master’s degree in public administration from Arizona State University.