It isn’t everyday that millionaires go traipsing through the mud, but last week Peter Mullin, chairman of Mullin Consulting, and his wife Merle visited the construction site of the new Veterans National Park, before kicking off a fundraising campaign.

The 16-acre park at Wilshire and San Vicente boulevards is the result of years of work by Susan Young, founder and executive director of the Veterans Park Conservancy, which has been trying to preserve land at the Veterans Administration.

The group has raised nearly $2 million of its $7 million goal from donors that include former Northrop Chairman Tom Jones, TCW founder Robert Day, British Ambassador Robert Holmes Tuttle, money manager John Hotchkis, attorney Ralph J. Shapiro and the Gerald and Virginia Oppenheimer Foundation.

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Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s President and Chief Executive Thomas Priselac was awarded the Warschaw Law Endowed Chair in Health Care Leadership, a permanent chair at Cedars-Sinai devoted to research and education in health care policy.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky spoke at the dedication ceremony last week honoring Priselac, an administrator known for his tough stance against the hospital’s unions.

He is one of the few non-physicians ever chosen to serve as chair of the Association of American Medical Colleges, which represents teaching hospitals and medical schools in the U.S. and Canada.

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Dodger owner Frank McCourt is nearing an agreement to sell some of his extensive real estate holdings on South Boston’s waterfront.

No deal has yet been announced but the Boston Herald has reported that several real estate developers have expressed an interest in acquiring parcels on McCourt’s 24-acre Boston site, where he has planned to build an upscale retail complex

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Michele Wein Layne was named associate regional director for enforcement of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Pacific Regional office, replacing longtime head Sandra Harris, who left the SEC in September to return to the private sector.

Layne will also serve as co-head of the Los Angeles office’s enforcement program, overseeing investigations in Southern California and eight Western states.

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Hotelier Lew Wolff, co-founder and chairman of Wolff Urban Management, has been named a director of Maguire Properties Inc. Wolff is a director of Sunstone Hotels and plans to build the convention center hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

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It wouldn’t be holiday season without mentioning Cerrell Associates’ annual bash at the HMS Bounty, which was packed with the usual lineup of politicos, including City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, City Controller Laura Chick and Tim McOsker, former chief of staff to Mayor James Hahn, who is now with the law firm Christensen Miller Fink Jacobs Glaser, Weil & Shapiro. Los Angeles supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Don Knabe also attended.

*Staff reporter Kate Berry can be reached at (323) 549-5225, ext. 228, or at

[email protected]

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