Marvin Braude

I had a thought when I read Zev Yaroslavsky’s June 30 commentary about retiring L.A. City Councilman Marvin Braude. If there ever was a living, breathing argument against term limits, it would be Braude. His great success was in advancing positions on issues that were many years ahead of their time. He pushed, cajoled, educated and waited, sometimes for decades, until he succeeded.

Had term limits been in effect, Braude would have been forced off the City Council in 1973. In all probability, we would have Occidental Oil drilling in the Palisades, widespread smoking in public places and uncontrolled commercial development without the passage of Prop. U. We would not have the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, the cleanest air in Southern California in 50 years and a ban on noisy, polluting leaf blowers.

Braude has been a role model for me as a city councilman--someone who has been willing to fight important battles that looked hopeless for as long as it took to win them.

PAUL KORETZ

City Councilman

West Hollywood

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* Yaroslavsky left out one important vote. Braude cast the swing vote to permit the private sector to bring the 1984 Olympics to Los Angeles (unbelievably, the Games only won by this one vote). In the years afterward, Braude told Mayor Tom Bradley, Council President John Ferraro, Arco’s Rod Rood and myself (each separately) that he cast the vote for each of us! Whatever--it was an important vote and deserves mention.

JOHN C. ARGUE

Los Angeles