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| Affiliation | Democratic |
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| <- |
2009-01-01 |
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| Name | Joel Wachs |
| Address |
New York, New York , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
March 01, 1939
(85 years)
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| Contributor | User 13 |
| Last Modifed | Thomas Walker
Jan 26, 2012 10:32am |
| Tags |
Gay -
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| Info | Joel Wachs (born 1939) is president of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in New York City. He was for thirty years a member of the Los Angeles, California, City Council, where he was known for his promotion of the arts, his support of gay causes, his advocacy of rent control and other liberal measures.
Wachs was born on March 1, 1939, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the son of Archie and Hannah Wachs, a teacher. His father was a Jewish immigrant from Poland who ran a grocery and butcher shop. The younger of two sons, Joel "suffered from hay fever so severe that at the height of the ragweed season, his parents sat him in the shop's cold storage storage room, in a fur coat, to help him breathe." They moved to Los Angeles when Wachs was ten years old, where he family became wealthy with a chain of inexpensive ladies' clothing stores. Joel grew up in Vermont Knolls, between 79th and 83rd streets and Vermont and Normandie Avenue.
He attended Horace Mann Junior High School and Washington High School, followed by UCLA, where the "gregarious" Wachs was president of his freshman and junior classes, and of the student body, and from whence he graduated in 1961. He earned a degree at Harvard Law School and then a master's degree in taxation from New York University. When in Los Angeles, he lived in Studio City.
The unmarried Wachs was a closeted gay until he was preparing to run for mayor in 1999 at the age of sixty. He was asked by Bill Rosendahl, the openly gay moderator of a public affairs television show, "Are you a gay man?" Wachs responded: "I am and I'm very proud of what I've done for the community, and I'm also very proud of the fact that what I've done for the community is what I've done for all communities."
He had a boisterous personality. When he was newly elected to the Los Angeles City Council, he distributed a mock ordinance that would supposedly have taxed all male residents on the size of their genitals. Occasionally he would exclaim "This is fun!" in the middle of a committee meeting. His colleagues described him as "a human guy, a lot of heart" and used adjectives that ranged from "very bright and intellectual" to "emotional" to "slightly hysterical."
After completing his education and before beginning a public career, Wachs was an attorney with the Los Angeles firm of Gray, Binkley & Pfaelzer, which later became Kadison, Pfaelzer, Woodard & Quinn, and practiced law for five years. He told a reporter in 1991: "I didn't love practicing tax law . . . . the result of my efforts was finding ways to save rich people money. And I didn't find that satsifying."
Wachs served on the Los Angeles City Council from July 1, 1971, to September 28, 2001, when his resignation took effect. His thirty years on the council were surpassed only by John Ferraro's thirty-five years, Ernani Bernardi's thirty-two years and Marvin Braude's thirty-one.
In May 1971, Wachs, "a young political newcomer," "overwhelmed" veteran James B. Potter, Jr. in Los Angeles City Council District 2, which included portions of the Santa Monica Mountains and the San Fernando Valley. The vote was 24,704 for Wachs and 14,898 for Potter. His victory was attributed in part to his opposing a multimillion-dollar development in the mountains just north of Beverly Hills.
When he was seated, he became the City Council's youngest member at age thirty-three.
In 1986, a redistricting move stripped him of more than 90% of his old district and put him into a new one that ran from his home in Studio City to Sunland-Tujunga in the far northeast San Fernando Valley. He was nevertheless reelected in the realigned, more conservative district despite the opposition of the Los Angeles Apartment Owners Association, which attacked him because of his fight against rent control. Wachs was reelected in every vote thereafter.
After ten years on the City Council, two of them as president pro tem, Wachs was suddenly and unexpectedly elected Los Angeles City Council president in July 1981 when outgoing President John Ferraro decided to drop out of the contest against Councilwoman Pat Russell and, with Councilwoman Peggy Stevenson as a partner, put up Wachs as a candidate instead. Wachs was elected to a two-year term in an 8-7 vote, with Wachs breaking a pledge to Russell to vote for her and casting a vote for himself instead. He later described the turn of events as akin to a "Hollywood movie" and, inasmuch as Mayor Tom Bradley was soon to become a candidate for governor, he had plenty of opportunity to act as mayor when Bradley was out of town. He served for two years.
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