Thursday, August 21, 2014
Page 3
Mel Levine Gets New Term as DWP Commissioner
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The Los Angeles City Council has reconfirmed Mel Levine as president of the Board of Water and Power Commissioners, the Department of Water and Power said yesterday in a release.
The DWP said Levine, who was appointed last August by Mayor Eric Garcetti and is currently president of the board, was confirmed for a full term on Tuesday. That term expires in August 2019.
In a statement, City Council President Herb Wesson called Levine, who is counsel in the Century City office of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, “an effective commissioner and we are grateful for his leadership and his willingness to take on this important assignment.”
The release quoted Levine as telling the council:
“My colleagues and I are focused on ensuring the sustainability of L.A.’s water and power while also keeping the lights on and the water running. I commit to working hard to tackle LADWP’s challenges, turn it around and once again make it a standard for all U.S. utilities to look up to.”
Levine, 71, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1983 until 1993, of the California Assembly from 1977 to 1982. He gave up his congressional seat to run for the U.S. Senate in 1992, but lost to Barbara Boxer in the Democratic primary and became a partner at Gibson Dunn soon after.
He left the partnership for counsel status in 2012. He chairs the Advisory Board of the Center on Public Diplomacy at USC’s Annenberg School, is a member of the Advisory Board of the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, and is a director of the Pacific Council on International Policy.
Levine received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1969, a master’s degree in public affairs from Princeton University in 1966, and a bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley in 1964.
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