Nature Preserve Named After Councilman Braude

After three decades as one of the city’s most avid environmentalists, retiring Los Angeles City Councilman Marvin Braude was honored Friday by having a nature preserve named for him in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Braude, the council’s senior member, announced in October that he would retire in June after 32 years in City Hall.

The longtime chairman of the budget and public safety committees, he is best known for his legislative accomplishments on the environment. He was the champion of Los Angeles’ landmark anti-smoking ordinance, worked for years to clean up the region’s air, and fought hard to prevent Rustic and Sullivan canyons from being used as landfills.

At 76, Braude remains an avid bicyclist, and last year he was the first city official to get an electric car.

Braude said he took particular pleasure in having the county’s sanitation board, his nemesis in the landfill fight, turn over its land in the canyons for a nature preserve with his name on it.