Posted by Cathy Gowdy on Monday, January 28, 2008 at 06:42:26 :
Independent Journal
Tuesday, December 9, 1980
Page 4
BERT W. LEVIT
California’s first state finance director, Bert W. Levit of San Rafael, died Monday at a local convalescent home. He was 77.
Levit, an active attorney for 55 years, was named by former Gov. Edmund G. “Pat” Brown to the newly created finance director’s post in 1959. As he had promised, Levit resigned after serving a brief term.
In a letter written afterward, Brown said Levit was instrumental in creating a revenue program that returned the state to balanced budgets.
Levit also served as legal adviser to the Marin County Board of Freeholders in 1958 and on the San Francisco Board of Education from 1948 to 1958 including two terms as board president. He was also president of the California School Board Association in 1956-57.
A native San Franciscan, he graduated magna cum laude from Stanford University in 1924 and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He received his law degree at Stanford a year later and was a member of the Order of the Coif.
During his career, he was a San Francisco chief deputy district attorney, state chief deputy attorney general and a special assistant to the U.S. attorney general in Washington D.C. prosecuting war frauds cases in 1925 and 1926.
His legal specialty was insurance. He served as counsel and adviser to various insurance companies and was the author of numerous articles on insurance, particularly its regulation.
He was also the senior partner of the San Francisco and Los Angeles law firm of Long & Levit, which he founded with the late Percy V. Long in 1927.
He had made his home in San Rafael about eight years.
Levit had been a member of numerous civic and professional organizations, including the San Francisco Press Club, Stock Exchange Club, Commercial Club, and U.S., California and San Francisco chambers of commerce.
He was general counsel of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and was a member of its board of directors from 1976 to 1977.
His first wife, the former Thelma Clumeck, died in 1970.
He leaves his second wife, Edith Garland Levit of San Rafael; two sons, Victor B. Levit of Belvedere and Roger C. Levit of Santa Rosa; his brother, William H. Levit, former Los Angeles Superior Court judge; and two grandchildren.
Victor Levit’s wife, Sherry, is a Belvedere city councilwoman.
A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday at Temple Emanu-El, at Lake Street and Arguello Boulevard, in San Francisco. The tribute will be given by Louis B. Lundborg, retired chairman of the board of the Bank of America.
The family has asked that memorial gifts go to the Merola Fund, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music or the California Academy of Sciences.
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