Q&A: Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky

Zev Yaroslavsky was a member of the Los Angeles City Council for 18 years before he joined the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. He was elected to the board in 1994 and has been re-elected three times, most recently in 2006. Yaroslavsky represents the Third District, which includes Encino and much of the San Fernando Valley as well as the Westside. During his tenure, he's become a leader on fiscal, health care, transportation, cultural and environmental matters. This interview was edited for length.

Encino Patch: What is the most important issue in Encino right now?

Zev Yaroslavsky: Well, I think the biggest issue facing the community there remains development and traffic. Development issues are not county issues, they are city of Los Angeles issues. And transportation issues are obviously regional. The passage of Measure R two years ago appropriated $1 billion towards a light rail line along the 405 corridor, which would connect West Los Angeles to Van Nuys that would include the gateway to Encino on Ventura Boulevard. And the Orange Line, which serves the very northern part of Encino, has been a very successful busway—it's the most successful busway in the country as of now—and serves the residents in the flatlands of Encino and Tarzana and budding communities. I think that transportation and development are the issues that come up most often to elected officials in the area.

Patch: What is your favorite spot in Encino?

Yaroslavsky: Well my favorite spot is the Sepulveda Dam. The Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area is really one of the unique urban recreation areas in the country. I like to jog there and I hike there. It's hard to imagine when you're in the middle of the Sepulveda Basin that you're in the middle of a metropolitan area. It's as though you're somewhere in Southeast Asia or in the jungle.  It's just a very peaceful and different experience.  So, that's my favorite part. I've jogged there many times. I don't live in the Valley, I live in the Fairfax area, but I go to the Valley and when I have events in the Valley, I take my jogging clothes with me so when I'm done with my event I'll just go to the Sepulveda Dam and do my four or five miles through there. 

And a lot of the Middle Eastern, Israeli restaurants along Ventura Boulevard are some of the best Middle Eastern restaurants in the county.  The Armenians and Israelis kind of have a monopoly on good Middle Eastern cuisine. If I go to Encino, and I do, I'll stop for a very small portion of falafel or hummus. It's not on my diabetes diet, but I try to at least taste some of the things.

Patch: What is your favorite aspect of Encino?

Yaroslavsky: It's a wonderful area. The hills of Encino are great. The summer weather patterns in Encino are wonderful. It gets very hot in the daytime, but you always get that afternoon, evening breeze. I used to have relatives who lived in Encino up in the hills and when I was growing up I remember spending time there in their pool and every afternoon around 3 or 4 o'clock it would be like a hurricane would come through there.  

Patch: If you could change one aspect of Encino, what would it be?

Yaroslavsky: There are a couple of buildings in Encino along Ventura Boulevard--one in particular. I don't know what it's called now, but it used to be called the Fagita Building. It's right across the street from Valley Beth Shalom. It's a six-story building, one block long. If there's one thing that I could do to change Encino it would be to turn the clock back to the time before that building was allowed to be built and have a more rational development plan for that block. It destroyed a whole block of single-family homes. No development in Los Angeles, whether it's Encino or any place else, should be so destructive and so insensitive that it creates the need to sell off your home. One man's profit should not come at the expense of somebody else's value. And that's what happened. So, if there's one thing I would change it would to tear down that building and make it more commensurate, more compatible with what else is on Ventura Boulevard: two- to three-story buildings with ground floor retail, restaurants and shops, neighborhood serving and not create this massive wall that separates Ventura Boulevard from the rest of the community.  

Patch: What is your passion?

Yaroslavsky: Personally, my passion is classical music. Arts and culture are a passion of mine. I've been fortunate to play an important role in the development and the expansion of the arts and cultural infrastructure of LA County in the time I've been on the [board of supervisors]. From Disney Hall to the Hollywood Bowl, the County  Museum of Art, the National History Museum and the new Performing Arts Center at Cal State Northridge. I believe very strongly that the arts are not only important to the psyche of our society, but it's also the economic engine, especially in Los Angeles. It's one of the biggest components of our economy. It's a big job creator and we employ more people in the arts in LA County than we employ in the defense industry. If you said that 20 years ago you'd be laughed out of town. So the arts—whether you like ballet or the opera or drama or classical music or you don't like any of them—the color of arts and culture is green. It produces jobs, some of them very well paying jobs, and they're part of the economic basis of California. I include motion pictures, television as well as the classical arts, drama and those kinds of things.