Paul Koretz

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Paul Koretz (born April 3, 1955 in Los Angeles, California) is an American politician. He announced his plans on August 2, 2007 [1] to seek the Los Angeles 5th District City Council seat now occupied by Jack Weiss in 2009. Weiss is expected to run for Los Angeles City Attorney after current City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo is termed out. Ron Galperin, a neighborhood activist, has declared his intentions to run against Koretz for the seat. Former Los Angeles City Controller Rick Tuttle has also indicated his interest, but has not yet filed papers.

Prior to that Koretz represented the 42nd district in the California State Assembly from 2000 to 2006, serving the maximum 3 terms allowed under California term limit law. The district includes West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Universal City, and the portions of the City of Los Angeles encompassing the Sunset Strip, Hollywood, Hancock Park, Los Feliz, Westwood, Brentwood, Studio City, Encino, Sherman Oaks, and North Hollywood/Valley Village.

Koretz's wife Gail [2] serves as Director of Public Affairs for Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center. They have one daughter, Rachel. The Koretz family currently resides in the Beverly-Fairfax District of Los Angeles [3].

[edit] Background

The Koretz family history in Los Angeles back more than 50 years. Koretz's father escaped Nazi Germany's persecution of Jews in 1939 by emigrating to America. Koretz's father lived in what was then unincorporated Los Angeles or simply unincorporated West Hollywood prior to Koretz's birth. The family however, moved to what was sometimes referred to as the West Hollywood area (based upon USPO designation) of the City of Los Angeles prior to Koretz's birth [4].

Paul Koretz (seen right) with his former Rent Stabilization Commissioner Kevin Norte at The 2007 Equality Awards in Los Angeles to benefit EQUALITY CALIFORNIA

Koretz was exposed to social and political causes at an early age, having accompanied his father to a rally for John F. Kennedy, and also joined his father on picket lines for union workersduring that period [5].

Koretz grew up in what is now the 5th Council District of Los Angeles and was educated at local schools, graduating from Hamilton High School. He earned a bachelor's degree in History from UCLA in 1979, where he was a founder of the "Bruin Democrats" [6]. A lifelong Democrat, Koretz served on the Los Angeles County Democratic Committee for more than 10 years. Koretz's early political life began while he was a student at UCLA during the 1970s, when he ran for a seat on the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education. Paul served as an aide to then-Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky in 1975, and then to then-L.A. City Councilman Marvin Braude in 1984. During this period he developed a close personal friendship with George Takei due to their similar political views. After his marriage to Gail, the Paul Koretz family moved less than a mile away from parent's home to an area where, by coincience, his father originally lived upon moving to Los Angeles [7].

Koretz also was the owner of an American historical and political memorabilia distributor that was one of the country's largest for several years [8].

[edit] West Hollywood

In 1984, Koretz forged to build the new City of West Hollywood from what was then unincorporated Los Angeles County. Koretz campaigned for the City's incorporation while managing the City Council campaign of Alan Viterbi and served as Mr. Viterbi's deputy after his election. Upon Viterbi's retirement in 1988, Koretz was elected to the West Hollywood City Council [9].

Koretz's commitment to the gay and lesbian community during his tenure on the West Hollywood City Council lead to the appointment of Kevin Norte to the City's Rent Stabilization Commission in 1992 where Norte [10] served as that commission's first openly gay chair for two one-year terms and Norte served on that commission until he and his domestic partner Don Norte [11] moved to the Melrose District [12] in Hollywood in 1999. Koretz then appointed former Log Cabin Republicans member and Equality California [13] leader attorney John Duran [14] to replace Norte as Koretz's appointee to the Rent Stabilization Commission. Duran then succeeded Koretz on the West Hollywood City Council.

Also during his council tenure, Koretz played a major role on many high profile issues. In 1988, Koretz sponsored a city-wide ban on semi-automatic rifles, which built momentum for a subsequent statewide "assault weapons" ban. In 1996, Koretz co-sponsored the City's ban on "Saturday Night Specials." The city was the first to enact such a ban, which survived various legal assaults by the National Rifle Association. Koretz also sponsored an ordinance limiting handgun purchases to one gun per month in order to cut the resale of guns on the black market [15]. Koretz served as Mayor and City Councilman for twelve years before being elected to the State Assembly.

Koretz's former colleague on the West Hollywood City Council, Abbe Land, was a candidate for Koretz's seat in the California State Assembly, and faced former Los Angeles City Council member Mike Feuer in the June 6, 2006 Democratic primary. Koretz endorsed Feuer, who went on to defeat Land, winning 52.4% of the vote to her 36.3% [16].

[edit] State Assembly

During his six years in the Assembly, Koretz served as the Chair of the Assembly Labor Committee since his first year in the Assembly. He also chaired the Assembly Select Committee on Gun Violence and the Assembly Select Committee on California's Nursing Shortage. Koretz was a member of the Health, Public Safety, Business & Professions, Insurance and Natural Resources committees [17].

Koretz introduced legislation in the State Assembly to increase the smoking age to 21 in order to make it harder for young people to gain access to tobacco products and prevent people from becoming addicted to tobacco. As a City Councilman, Koretz had authored West Hollywood's ordinance banning smoking in restaurants, and developed the strategy of making it a regional ban by having neighboring cities pass the same ban at the same time. This provided momentum to help pass then-Assemblyman Friedman's historic AB 13 [18].

Koretz has been an environmental leader and activist for many years. He was the first Southern California Director of the California League of Conservation Voters and served as Administrative Director of the Ecology Center of Southern California. In the Assembly, he has introduced legislation requiring retailers profiting from the most commonly littered items to share some of the costs of removing trash from storm water runoff, and he is the joint-author of legislation to ban the use of dry cleaner solutions. These solutions have been found to be carcinogenic [19].

Koretz has also been a protector of Los Angeles County's health system, an unwavering champion of the gay and lesbian community and supporter of domestic partnership rights and benefits and a well-known opponent of animal cruelty. Crime prevention is also one of Koretz's top priorities. In 2005, he combined the two interests by proposing AB 1677, allowing not-for-profits to distribute condoms in California's prisons. This bill was vetoed in September, 2006. He is also a passionate advocate for the Jewish community [20].

In 2006, Paul Koretz introduced Assembly Joint Resolution 39, which called for the impeachment of George W. Bush [21].

[edit] Post-legislative service

In June 2007, former Assemblyman Koretz was nominated by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez to the California Board of Podriatic Medicine.^[1]

[edit] References