[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 59 (Thursday, April 10, 2014)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E581]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                TRIBUTE TO THE HONORABLE ZEV YAROSLAVSKY

                                  _____
                                 

                          HON. HENRY A. WAXMAN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 10, 2014

  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, it is my great pleasure to rise today to pay 
tribute to my trusted, long-time friend, Los Angeles County Supervisor 
Zev Yaroslavsky. Zev is retiring at the end of this year after forty 
years of exceptional public service.
  I first met Zev more than four decades ago when he headed California 
Students for Soviet Jews at the University of California-Los Angeles 
(UCLA). It was clear at that time that Zev was driven by idealism, an 
inherent sense of fairness, and a commitment to public service. And, it 
was clear that he was a pragmatic problem solver and knew how to get 
things done.
  Zev started his career in elected office in 1975 at the age of 
twenty-six after winning a hard fought grassroots campaign for a seat 
on the Los Angeles City Council against a much more experienced 
candidate who had the strong support of the Democratic political 
establishment.
  Zev chaired the Los Angeles City Council's Finance Committee and 
worked very hard and very creatively to find solutions to difficult 
budgetary problems. As chair of the Police, Fire, and Public Safety 
Committee, he fought against the Los Angeles Police Department's use of 
choke-holds and against the department's intelligence activities, which 
included spying on critics of the department and individuals who held 
liberal political beliefs.
  Two of the most intractable problems Zev tackled on the City Council 
were unrestrained commercial development and traffic congestion. He co-
authored Proposition U, which proposed to halve the size of new 
buildings allowed on most of the city's commercial and industrial 
property. The initiative passed by a wide margin in 1986. He then 
worked for Proposition O, which passed in 1988 and blocked Occidental 
Petroleum Corp.'s long battle to drill for oil along the Los Angeles 
coastline.
  Zev served on the Los Angeles City Council until 1994 when he won a 
seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. A strong 
environmentalist, Zev made major significant progress in protecting 
precious county land. He sponsored the 1996 Proposition A park bond to 
protect open space and develop urban parks and inner-city recreation 
programs countywide. He led the effort to acquire more than 7,000 acres 
of county parkland and worked hard on the purchase of the 588-acre King 
Gillette Ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains from Soka University.
  As the largest, most populated county in the United States, Los 
Angeles County has complex transportation needs. Zev has championed a 
diversity of transit alternatives to most efficiently and cost-
effectively meet the needs of the different communities and geographic 
make-up of the County. He has worked to bring to densely populated 
areas subway access and to less densely populated areas light rail and 
busways. He advanced the Orange Line busway in the San Fernando Valley, 
which has been tremendously popular. He has fought for the new light 
rail Expo Line, which, upon completion, will travel from Downtown Los 
Angeles to Santa Monica. And, he has been a driving force to extend the 
subway to the Westside of Los Angeles.
  Zev also 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. He has also helped fund major 
investments in the L.A. County Museum of Art and the County's Museum of 
Natural History.
  On health care, Zev has worked to secure the viability of our 
nation's second largest public health system and pushed for reforms 
that have brought access to care for millions of vulnerable 
individuals. He led the push for more primary care and strong 
partnerships that endure today between LA County's public system and 
primary care clinics throughout the County. He has been a tireless 
advocate for implementation of the Affordable Care Act and its 
expansion of Medicaid. Medicaid expansion alone has brought health 
coverage to more than 300,000 uninsured individuals in LA County.
  One of Zev's most passionate goals has been the end of homelessness 
in LA County. In 2007, he initiated Project 50, a pilot project using a 
``housing first'' approach for the most chronically homeless 
individuals on Skid Row. Project 50 was so successful that the VA 
created Project 60 in Los Angeles and uses the ``housing first'' model 
to work with veterans who are chronically homeless veterans. Zev showed 
that it is not only possible to help the dispossessed regain their 
dignity and their lives, but that it can be done while saving taxpayer 
dollars.
  Zev's extensive accomplishments as County Supervisor have touched 
every part of LA County and improved the lives of every County 
resident. LA County, the State of California, and our nation owe Zev a 
debt for his tireless work. I ask all of my colleagues to join me in 
thanking Zev for his exceptional service and extending to him, his 
wonderful wife Barbara, and their two children, Mina and David, our 
very best wishes for the future.

                          ____________________