LOCAL ELECTIONS WESTLAKE VILLAGE CITY COUNCIL : All 5 Candidates Busy Championing the Status Quo in an Amiable Race

Trying to outdo each other in their enthusiasm for the status quo are five candidates running for three open seats on the Westlake Village City Council.

Council seats held by Mayor James Emmons, Mayor Pro Tem Douglas Yarrow and retiring Councilwoman Bonnie Klove are open.

Emmons, 38, the former city manager, and Yarrow, 47, a computer software executive, are running for reelection as are three newcomers: Westlake Medical Center marketing director Kris Carraway, 44, mortgage broker Todd Silver, 25, and carpet wholesaler Daniel J. Murphy, 50.

All five have stolidly resisted temptation to make the campaign contentious. They agree on nearly all the issues and for the most part, their tactful reluctance to criticize each other has made this race more like a drawing-room soiree than a political campaign.

“People, at least in our community, are relatively happy with things, relatively satisfied,” explained Emmons.

The subdued nature of politics in Westlake Village stems from the fact that the city, which was incorporated in 1981, is rigorously master-planned and has little space left for development, he said.

Built around a man-made lake, the community of 7,625 has little ethnic diversity, little poverty, a low crime rate, and on top of it all, a rigid design code that requires all its businesses to be painted in muted earth tones.

One of the biggest local issues, Los Angeles County’s proposed acquisition of the 492-acre Westlake Vista property for parkland, is supported by all the candidates. Otherwise, most voters are caught up in minute neighborhood concerns, said Carraway, a single mother and the only woman in the race.

“People look myopically at issues that affect them,” she said. “One woman talked to me about dog feces in the park: she is sick and tired of it. Another said we need to make sure trees are trimmed better because they block the lights at night.”

Emmons, city manager of Westlake Village from 1982 to 1988 and former city manager of La Habra Heights, is running on the strength of his budgetary and land-use expertise, he said.

Emmons has raised the most money in the campaign--$8,216--most of it from a fund-raising dinner held earlier this year. Campaign finance disclosure forms show Emmons received money from a wide variety of business and individual interests, all in relatively small increments.

Carraway, a past president of the Westlake Village Chamber of Commerce, has raised $4,060, much of it through local businesses.

Yarrow, who has raised about $6,565, casts himself in the same mold as Emmons and Carraway. Voters should ask themselves if they are satisfied with the way the city has been run when they go to the polls, he said. “They should keep a good thing going.”

If there are any outsiders in this race, they are Silver and Murphy, who have raised the least of any candidates.

Silver, a recent graduate of USC, has borrowed from his business to bolster the $1,260 he’s received in campaign contributions. He is one of the few candidates to have defined his candidacy around a single issue: his contention there is not enough for teen-agers to do in sedate Westlake Village. The city needs to build a youth center, he maintains.

Murphy tried unsuccessfully to win a council seat two years ago. He has raised less than $1,000 and though a real estate trustee himself, he has refused to take money from any real estate development interests, he said.

Although he agrees with the other candidates on most issues, Murphy said he is not a City Hall insider.

“I am not one of the group ,” he said, referring to Emmons, Yarrow and Carraway. Although some have criticized his scanty involvement in city issues in the past, Murphy said he has a record of serving the community in youth sports.

He said he wants more police protection in the city, and will introduce a biyearly public attitudinal survey.