Sherman Oaks Wants Interim Council Member : Politics: Zev Yaroslavsky leaves office in December. Activists hope to enlist Westside in fight.

Community leaders say they hope Sherman Oaks and other communities will band together to persuade the City Council to appoint an interim council member for the 5th District when Zev Yaroslavsky leaves office in December.

These activists plan to take their fight south of the Santa Monica Mountains by asking the Westside communities in Yaroslavsky’s district to join a Sherman Oaks’ letter-writing campaign.

“If we have the entire district standing up and saying, ‘Hey’--that’s not something (City Councilman) Joel Wachs can ignore,” said Barry Wegman, vice president of the Sherman Oaks Chamber of Commerce.

Wachs and City Council President John Ferraro say they are opposed to appointing an interim council member, an option the council last chose in 1966. But Yaroslavsky has urged the unusual step, saying that Sherman Oaks needs a strong advocate on the council during the next several months, as it struggles to recover from the quake.

Yaroslavsky’s seat will be vacant for seven months from Dec. 5, when he leaves to become a county supervisor, to July 1, 1995, the earliest date that the winner of an April special election could take office.

The councilman’s proposal has received a positive reaction throughout the district, according to Yaroslavsky aide Laurie Saffian.

“Obviously, most of the support has been from areas that were heavily damaged by the earthquake, but there have been calls from all over the district,” Saffian said. “The intensity of the support has been surprising and gratifying.”

Ferraro has said that the City Council’s longtime practice of having the city’s chief legislative analyst run vacant council offices has worked just fine. He noted that in 1991 the analyst ran two vacant council offices at the same time. The analyst would not have a vote on the council.

At the center of the replacement-rep drive is the Sherman Oaks Town Council, a loose confederation of Sherman Oaks’ community organizations. Members agreed at a meeting Monday night to write letters to City Council members urging them to “name that council member.”

Fred Gaines, a co-chairman of the town council, will head a committee that will oversee the letter-writing campaign. He said he will follow up on the letters by asking for meetings with City Council members to discuss the community’s concerns.

“The first and foremost concern of the 15 members of the City Council is looking out for their constituents,” Gaines said. “To not have someone looking out for the 5th District would be against the interests of the community.”