[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 51 (Monday, March 31, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1867-S1868]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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                       TRIBUTE TO ZEV YAROSLAVSKY

 Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I wish to honor Zev 
Yaroslavsky, who is retiring at the end of this year, after a 
distinguished and illustrious career spanning 40 years as a public 
servant in the State of California. We wish to extend to Mr. 
Yaroslavsky our sincere

[[Page S1868]]

congratulations for the decades of dedicated service that he has given 
to his Nation, his State, his city, and his county.
  Mr. Yaroslavsky was first elected to the Los Angeles County Board of 
Supervisors in 1994 and is in the final year of his fifth term on the 
Board. He has served as chair of the Board, which is rotated annually 
among the supervisors, four times. For the past 20 years, he has 
represented the Third Supervisorial District, where he will be 
remembered as a devoted public servant who amassed numerous 
accomplishments and innumerable awards.
  Mr. Yaroslavsky represents nearly 2 million residents in his 
district. His efforts primarily have focused on fiscal, health care, 
transportation, the environment, veterans affairs, homelessness, and 
the arts. Prior to representing the Third Supervisorial District, he 
served on the Los Angeles City Council from 1975 to 1994 to which he 
was elected and re-elected six times.
  As a Los Angeles City councilman, Mr. Yaroslavsky honed his fiscal 
skills as the respected chair of the Council's Finance Committee, and 
he also earned a reputation as a politician who was willing to take on 
issues that others would not, including the highly controversial 
excessive use of force and intelligence gathering policies of the Los 
Angeles Police Department. As councilman, he also co-authored two 
landmark initiatives with his colleague, the late Councilman Marvin 
Braude: Proposition U (1986) which cut by half the commercial 
development rights adjacent to residential neighborhoods, and 
Proposition O (1988) which repealed a drilling permit previously issued 
to the Occidental Petroleum Company.
  Most notably, a few of his major accomplishments as supervisor 
include authoring the 1996 Proposition `A' park bond that resulted in 
the preservation of rural open space and the development of urban parks 
throughout the county. He also authored the 2002 Proposition `B' trauma 
tax, approved by over 73 percent of county voters, which is largely 
credited with stabilizing the county's health care finances.
  Mr. Yaroslavsky was the driving force behind the Orange Line busway 
across the San Fernando Valley which opened in 2005 to record ridership 
(22,000 daily boardings). He led the effort to rebuild and modernize 
the world famous Hollywood Bowl amphitheater which re-opened in 2004, 
and he was instrumental in the development of Walt Disney Concert Hall, 
the home of the L.A. Philharmonic Orchestra, which opened in 2003. He 
has also helped fund major investments in the L.A. County Museum of Art 
and the County's Museum of Natural History. He is regarded as the 
county's fiscal watchdog, insisting that it live within its means.
  Since 1991, Mr. Yaroslavsky has also been associated with the 
National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, NDI, a non-
governmental organization headquartered in Washington, DC, that 
promotes the development of democratic institutions in burgeoning 
democracies. He has monitored three international elections for NDI: 
Romania (1990), Mexico (2000), and Ukraine (2004). He also has 
conducted seminars on democratic institution-building in Russia, 
Ukraine, Turkey, and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
  While these are just some of Zev Yaroslavsky's significant 
accomplishments, on behalf of the U.S. Senate and the State of 
California, we extend our heartfelt gratitude for his inestimable 
contributions throughout his renowned career. With sincere best wishes, 
we congratulate Mr. Yaroslavsky upon his retirement from the Los 
Angeles County Board of Supervisors. We are pleased to join his many 
co-workers, family, friends, and associates in wishing him health, 
happiness, and continued good fortune in his future endeavors.

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