[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 58 (Wednesday, May 1, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4563-S4564]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              DONALD MINTZ

 Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, America lost a real civic leader, 
Louisiana and New Orleans lost a political leader who believed in 
cooperation, not confrontation, and I lost a good friend far too early 
in his life.
  Don Mintz lived a beautiful life, raised a beautiful family and had a 
wonderful wife Susan, who together contributed so much to so many.
  I ask that an editorial on Donald Mintz that ran in the New Orleans 
Times Picayune on April 30, 1996, which expresses the feelings of so 
many, be printed in the Record.
  The editorial follows:

                              Donald Mintz

       Donald Mintz, who died unexpectedly Sunday of a heart 
     attack, was a New Orleanian first and foremost. Though he 
     never held public office, Mr. Mintz set a highly public 
     example of how to be a citizen in our complex, multiracial 
     community. He was as much at home in a corporate boardroom as 
     in the humblest neighborhood.
       He tried to connect our disparate worlds. He was a builder 
     of bridges between his black and white friends, a man of 
     faith nationally recognized for his work as a Jewish lay 
     leader and, most importantly, a dreamer of dreams, which he 
     worked with ferocious energy to realize. One of his fondest, 
     of becoming mayor of New Orleans, was unfulfilled after 
     unsuccessful campaigns in 1990 and 1994.
       But even without the portfolio of office, Mr. Mintz was a 
     doer, a relentless actor and producer on the city's stage. 
     There was nothing lukewarm about him. Whatever caught his 
     interest had him thoroughly absorbed. And then he was 
     relentless, driven, sometimes brazen, always dedicated, 
     especially to New Orleans.
       As Marc Morial, the man who defeated him most recently for 
     mayor, said: ``Above all, he was a committed New Orleanian.''
       By his death at age 53, Mr. Mintz had well beyond a 
     lifetime's worth of accomplishments. He had been chairman of 
     the Anti-Defamation League's advisory board and achieved 
     national stature in this country's Jewish community; he had 
     been a founder of a law firm; chairman of the Dock Board, the 
     Downtown Development District, the United Way and the 
     Criminal Justice Task Force on Violent Street Crime, and 
     president of the Metropolitan Area Committee, Kingsley House, 
     Touro Synagogue and the Jewish Federation of Greater New 
     Orleans.
       He was the managing partner of several Warehouse District 
     renovations, a member of the Archbishop's Community Appeal 
     campaign committee and a board member of The Chamber/New 
     Orleans and the River Region and the New Orleans Symphony.

[[Page S4564]]

       Between mayoral elections, he was passionate in his 
     leadership of the statewide committee that set up the 
     Louisiana Health Care Authority to run the Charity hospital 
     system and became chairman of the authority's board.
       The activities bespeak involvement and dynamism, but they 
     don't describe Donald Mintz's spirit. With his wife, Susan, 
     he exuded a love of people, a love of life, a love of 
     community, a devotion to New Orleans. Coupled with this 
     tireless drive, the result is that he made a difference in 
     his hometown.

                          ____________________