13: Dora Hill: Newport's First Woman Mayor, Greatest Reformer and Killer of Bal Week

In 1954, Dora Hill, housewife and grandmother, reluctantly
entered the Newport Beach City Council race just 10 minutes
before the filing deadline and unexpectedly won in a landslide.
Garnering the most votes in city history, the victory surprised
even her husband, who only agreed to her run for office because
he was convinced she would lose.

At her first council meeting, she was appointed the city's first
female mayor. For the next four years, Mayor Hill would led a
reformation of Newport Beach from a town run by a powerful good,
old boys' network that traded heavily in cronyism to a
transparent and professional city government that continues to
this day.

Mayor Hill's second greatest achievement was figuring how to stop
35,000 kids from their annual spring-break invasion (called Bal
Week) of Newport Beach, a town at the time of just 17,000
residents.

She did all this while battling the relentless chauvinism that
came with being the city's first woman mayor.

Special feature: This episode incorporates a rare
recording of Mayor Hill that allows her to tell much of her story
in her own words.