April Vote Planned to Fill Yaroslavsky Seat : Elections: Council decides not to name an interim replacement to represent the district for six months.

The Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to hold a primary election in April to fill the seat left vacant when Zev Yaroslavsky joined the County Board of Supervisors, setting the stage for what is expected to be an expensive, hard-fought election.

The vote simultaneously kills a proposal by a coalition of San Fernando Valley and Westside residents and business leaders to appoint an interim replacement to fill the seat until the election.

Although several names have been proposed to fill the six-month vacancy, the council opted against making an appointment partly because there was little consensus on a candidate and because an appointment was likely to spark a divisive debate in the council.

“I don’t think there were eight votes (on the 15-member council) for an appointment,” said Councilman Joel Wachs, a Valley representative who has opposed an appointed replacement.

Wachs said he opposes a political appointment because “anyone who serves on the City Council voting for the people should be elected by the people.” In addition, he said he is content to rely on the traditional city practice of assigning a city bureaucrat to watch over vacant districts.

Councilwoman Laura Chick said she supported the idea of an interim appointment but did not make a motion to that effect because there was not sufficient support for a particular candidate. “I wasn’t about to play a role in choosing a candidate,” she said.

The two leading contenders for the temporary slot were Mike Jimenez, a former legislative aide to Yaroslavsky, and Bob Geoghegan, a former deputy to Supervisor Ed Edelman, whose retirement set off the domino-effect that created the vacancy for Yaroslavsky, who was elected to the post in November.

Supporters of an appointed representative say the district, which stretches from Sherman Oaks to Westwood, was hard hit by the Northridge quake and needs a voting representative to oversee its recovery.

Until a permanent replacement is elected, Avak Keotahian, a longtime legislative analyst, will respond to the day-to-day problems in the district but will have no vote on the council.

Meanwhile, the race for the highly coveted seat is beginning in earnest, with several major candidates already rounding up endorsements and tapping contributors in hopes of building robust campaign war chests.

The top candidates include Barbara Yaroslavsky, the former councilman’s wife; Roberta Weintraub, a former school board member; Jeff Brain, a Sherman Oaks realtor; Michael Feuer, former head of a legal services agency, and Lea Purwin D’Agostino, a deputy district attorney.

Political consultants and City Hall insiders say Barbara Yaroslavsky already has an advantage in the race based on the enormous name recognition built by her husband in his 19 years on the City Council.

“She has 100% name recognition,” one prominent political consultant said. “You can’t buy name recognition like that. Zev Yaroslavsky is one of the most popular elected officials in the city.”

Richard Lichtenstein, a Westside consultant, agreed. “Barbara still has to be the candidate to beat for name ID alone,” he said.

Weintraub is also expected to take advantage of her name recognition developed over 14 years on the Board of Education. Lichtenstein said Weintraub is also likely to rely on her campaign experience that helped her keep the school board seat for so long.

In the race for endorsements, D’Agostino picked up key support in October when she won the backing of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union that represents the rank and file of the Los Angeles Police Department.

The league, which clashed often with Zev Yaroslavsky when he was on the council, vowed to oppose Barbara Yaroslavsky. Union members promised last week to picket her first major fund-raiser, but only a handful of officers showed up.

Weintraub, who is expected to gain most of her support in the Valley, has picked up endorsements from several current and former politicians, including council members Jackie Goldberg and Richard Alarcon, state Sens. Quentin L. Kopp (I-San Francisco) and Herschel Rosenthal (D-Los Angeles), and former state Sens. Ed Davis and David A. Roberti.

Brain, a prominent Sherman Oaks activist, has the backing of the Los Angeles Assn. of Realtors and the San Fernando Valley Assn. of Realtors as well as several Sherman Oaks business leaders.

Feuer, a Harvard law graduate and former head of Bet Tzedek, a Westside legal aid center, has the backing of several business and community leaders, including Bruce Corwin, president of Metropolitan Theaters; Marsha Volpert, a Department of Water and Power commissioner; Marc Platt, president of Tri Star Pictures, and David Kalish, an LAPD commander.