28 Facts About Kenneth Hahn

Kenneth Frederick Hahn was a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors for forty years, from 1952 to 1992.

Kenneth Hahn was an ardent supporter of civil rights throughout the 1960s, and met Martin Luther King Jr.

Kenneth Hahn was born August 19,1920, in Los Angeles, the son of Hattie Louise of Nottawa, Canada, and John Heinrich Kenneth Hahn.

The couple moved from Saskatchewan to Los Angeles in 1919, and Kenneth Hahn's father died just a few months later.

Kenneth Hahn went to public schools in Los Angeles, including John Muir Junior High School and Fremont High School, class of 1938.

Kenneth Hahn received a master's degree in education while he was on the City Council.

Kenneth Hahn began his working career as a partner in the Kenneth Hahn Brothers' Service Station at 6300 South Main Street, at the foot of San Pedro Street in the South Park area.

Kenneth Hahn entered the Navy as an enlisted man in 1942 and earned a commission after studying at naval schools at Northwestern and Notre Dame universities.

Kenneth Hahn was a ship's pilot in San Pedro, the youngest pilot in the history of the Port of Los Angeles.

Kenneth Hahn served with the US Seventh Fleet in the South Pacific as the commanding officer of a supply ship and was discharged in 1946 as a lieutenant.

Kenneth Hahn's first try for public office was as a candidate for the State Assembly in the 66th District in June 1946.

Kenneth Hahn was supported by students at Pepperdine College, which at that time was located in the 8th District: they circulated his nominating petitions and did house-to-house campaigning for him.

Kenneth Hahn left the council on December 1,1952, when he became a county supervisor.

Kenneth Hahn urged a delay in the building of a new jail in Lincoln Heights until the council could hear from Assemblyman Vernon Kilpatrick, who declared in a letter that the proposed lockup represented "outmoded thinking concerning jail programs" and suggested that the money be spent for more "sunshine and fresh air" prison camps.

Kenneth Hahn proposed a special police patrol to protect birds nesting on the City Hall grounds.

Kenneth Hahn was elected to the County Board of Supervisors for the first time in 1952.

Kenneth Hahn was known for his promotion of social causes, bringing the Los Angeles Dodgers to Los Angeles and putting emergency call boxes along freeways.

In 1970 he joined with his personal physician, cardiologist Walter S Graf, to establish the first system of emergency paramedic care in California; Hahn is credited with winning support for the then-radical idea from the Board of Supervisors and the state legislature, and persuading then-governor Ronald Reagan to sign the bill authorizing the provision of emergency medical care by trained personnel other than doctors and nurses.

At the Board of Supervisors, Kenneth Hahn designed the County Seal adopted in 1957, which was modified in 2004 due to the Christian cross on the seal.

In 1961, Kenneth Hahn was the only public official to greet Martin Luther King Jr.

At the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, Kenneth Hahn proposed and eventually achieved consensus in favor of putting a proposition on the ballot that not only included funding for a rail network, but funding for local transit to be spent by the local communities as well as lower bus fares for three years.

Kenneth Hahn died of heart failure on October 12,1997, at the age of 77 in an Inglewood hospital.

Kenneth Hahn was a "deeply religious man who often quoted Scripture".

Kenneth Hahn was reported to have suffered a stroke in 1987, from which he recovered over a lengthy period of time.

Kenneth Hahn's recovery did not substantially affect his popularity or reelection.

James Kenneth Hahn is a judge on the Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Kenneth Hahn's daughter, Janice Kenneth Hahn, was on the Los Angeles City Council and was a member of the US House of Representatives; she is on the County Board of Supervisors.

Kenneth Hahn is remembered in the naming of a large park in Baldwin Hills, the Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area.