Everyone knows that Zev means Wolf, but how many people know that Yaroslavsky translates into hypocrite. The Los Angeles Times Opinion section ran a piece about the powerful County Supervisor and former Los Angeles City Councilman as being the “undeveloper”.

Interestingly, virtually everyone who travels the Wilshire Corridor, or almost anywhere else on the Westside of Los Angeles, is bogged down in traffic primarily caused by Zev Yaroslavsky as “the over-developer”. During most of his dozen or so years on the Council, Zev allowed more high-rise development and high density housing than any Councilmember in memory. Nor did he care that all of the housing he created catered to the rich and the super-rich. Only rarely did he work hard for market-race or affordable housing. He also stopped the building of a subway line from downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific Ocean. A mass transit necessity for all of Los Angeles, especially those who babysit the children and clean the toilets of the super- wealthy who Zev helped build housing for.

The fact that he is now praised for trying to reduce development in the County is not his laying the groundwork for his campaign for Los Angeles Mayor. After-all, he’s already shown that he didn’t have the guts to do that when he could have won – some people say it is an effort to take attention away from the awful job he is doing as County Supervisor where he regularly grandstands about the County’s healthcare crisis, budget woes yet rarely provides meaningful solutions.

It has been said in the past that the most dangerous place to stand is between Zev Yaroslavsky and a television camera – it still is.