Zev yaroslavsky biography template

A force of our best nature

August 21, No Comments

Cynthia Langley is no quitter. Lives depend on that.

A social worker for more than three decades, Langley fights chronic homelessness one weary soul at a time, spending day and night trying to persuade the most entrenched residents of the street to give housing a chance. She’s never welcomed with open arms. But in the end, she receives enough hugs of gratitude to keep her spirits strong.

“Someone has got to reach out to these individuals. They’re somebody’s son, somebody’s brother, somebody’s cousin, somebody’s loved one,” says the year-old Langley, herself a grandmother of four. “And I’m stubborn enough not to take no for an answer.”

Earlier this year, I called upon Langley’s employer, the miracle-working Step Up on Second, for help on a case that would take every ounce of her stubbornness and devotion.

For more than a decade, a homeless man had taken over a bus shelter on Beverly Boulevard at Gardner Street near the Fairfax area. Over the years, he’d amassed a rising mountain of boxes and bags. The situation was no longer acceptable—for him or the community.

I knew that if anyone could get him off the street it was Step Up on Second, a Santa Monica-based nonprofit that provides permanent supportive housing to the most vulnerable of our homeless population. In fact, I’d recently allocated county funds to the organization to expand its outreach into the Beverly corridor, an area of increasing homelessness. Langley was brought aboard with that money and would soon come face-to-face with one her toughest challenges—a year-old man who’d come to be called the “Professor.”

What happened during the next four months is both inspiring and instructive—a real-life look at what it actually takes to bring about the first steps in a long journey of recovery. It’s a remarkable story

Zev Yaroslavsky, L.A. County Supervisor, Third District

During a career in public life spanning nearly four decades, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky has been at the forefront of Los Angeles County’s biggest issues, from transportation to the environment to health care to the arts. He has been a pioneering advocate for the region’s homeless population and has played a key role in efforts to reform the county’s law enforcement agencies.

Yaroslavsky was first elected to office in , stunning the political establishment by winning the Los Angeles City Council’s coveted 5th District seat at the age of On the council, Yaroslavsky honed his fiscal skills as chairman of the Finance Committee and earned a reputation as being unafraid to tackle controversial issues, including the Los Angeles Police Department’s use of excessive force and its improper spying on law-abiding residents. He co-authored two landmark initiatives with his colleague, the late Councilman Marvin Braude: Proposition U, which cut in half the size of new commercial developments near residential neighborhoods, and Proposition O, which banned oil drilling along the city’s shoreline.

As the Los Angeles Times said of his City Hall tenure: “Yaroslavsky was more often than not a dominant player in virtually every municipal initiative of note since he joined the City Council.”

In , Yaroslavsky was elected to the five-member Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, representing the western part of the county and a constituency of two million people. He is now serving his fifth term as the board’s Third District representative. Because of term limits, he will leave office at the close of

As a member of the Board of Supervisors, Yaroslavsky quickly emerged as a leader on fiscal, health care, transportation, cultural and environmental matters. He authored the Proposition ‘A’ park bond, which resulted in the preservation of a broad swath of rural open space and the development of urban parks throughout

During a career in public life spanning nearly four decades, Zev Yaroslavsky has been at the forefront of Los Angeles County’s biggest issues, including transportation, the environment, health care, and cultural arts.  He has been a pioneering advocate for the region’s homeless population and has played a key role in efforts to reform the county’s law enforcement agencies.

Mr. Yaroslavsky was first elected to office in , stunning the political establishment by winning the Los Angeles City Council’s coveted 5 District seat at the age of   He honed his fiscal skills as chairman of the Council’s Finance Committee and earned a reputation for being unafraid to tackle controversial issues, including the Los Angeles Police Department’s use of excessive force and its improper spying on law-abiding residents.  He authored two landmark ballot initiatives, one which cut in half the size of new commercial developments near residential neighborhoods in the City of L.A., and the other which banned oil drilling along the city’s coastline.

In describing Mr. Yaroslavsky’s City Hall tenure, the Los Angeles Times wrote that he “was more often than not a dominant player in virtually every municipal initiative of note since he joined the City Council.”

In , Mr. Yaroslavsky was elected to the five-member Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, representing the western part of the county and a constituency of two million people.  He served five terms as the Board’s Third District representative.  Because of term limits, he retired from office on December 1,  Supervisor Yaroslavsky’s award-winning website, which ran from late until the end of his term, including blog entries and feature stories on County issues, programs and personalities, can be accessed here.

As a member of the Board of Supervisors, Mr. Yaroslavsky quickly emerged as a leader on fiscal, health care, transportation, cultural and environmental matters.  He authored several landmark ballot initiatives:  the park

Sure, the name’s familiar, even if you can’t spell it or pronounce it. Zev Yaroslavsky’s been a big presence in this town since he was elected to the Los Angeles City Council in , and then to the county Board of Supervisors in Before then, in his impetuous, impassioned youth, he and some fellow activists came alongside a Soviet ship in L.A. harbor, jammed a toilet plunger against it to steady their boat and hurriedly spray painted “Let Jews Go” on the hull. He reads history and politics for pleasure. Mitch Miller inspired him to play the oboe. His predecessor on the board, Ed Edelman, played the cello, and did so once at the Hollywood Bowl. Yaroslavsky would prefer to take a Bowl bow narrating “Lincoln Portrait” by Aaron Copland. He ran uncontested in the primary in June, so he’ll be a supe until he’s termed out in The question is, is this his swan song to politics or the overture to a long-speculated run for mayor of Los Angeles?

After three decades in politics here, people still have trouble with your last name. Chick Hearn once called you “Zevalosky” at a Lakers rally.

Zev is a Hebrew name that means “wolf.” I’m named after my grandfather, whose name in Yiddish was Velvel, and Velvel is a diminutive for wolf. My first campaign for office was ninth-grade Boys League vice president. My slogan was “Vote for the guy with the shortest first name and the longest last name.” I won in a landslide.

The county has budget problems but not as dire as those of the city of Los Angeles; why is that?

We’ve lived within our means. We worked with our unions to meet their needs and asked them to work on our needs, so they’re getting paid the same as they were getting paid two years ago. In good years we’ve socked away money so in the lean years we could navigate a recession. In , the first year I was here, when the county almost went bankrupt, we received a call from our creditors in Switzerland. They grilled us like a prosecutor: W