JUDGING THE ‘60s -- robert gardner

I am about to pay homage to whom I consider the most outstanding person

in the history of the city of Newport Beach. I recognize I am a decade

off, but blame it on advanced age -- 88 long, hard years plus six months

of the most painful malady known, shingles.

But enough of excuses and on to the story of Dora Hill, the first woman

mayor of Newport Beach and, much more important, the person who dragged

this town kicking and screaming into a new, modern, progressive form of

city government.

Oh, the town had cleaned up its act by the time Dora Hill became mayor.

Prohibition was a thing of the past. Open gambling was no more, but our

form of government still lent itself to the Lloyd Claire/Frank Rinehart

type of bossism.

Mayor Hill and a young, aggressive Presbyterian minister, Jim Stewart,

saw the need for a realignment of the political situation and spearheaded

the election of a board of freeholders to create a new City Charter. The

freeholders were elected, and under Les Stephensen’s leadership, the city

embarked on its new and orderly development.

The new City Charter increased the size of the City Council from five to

seven, but the most important provision was that while the new members of

the council were to be elected at large, they were to come from the seven

parts of town. No longer could the city be run by one part of town, as

was the case in the days of the Lloyd Claire/Frank Rinehart regime.

Next, Mayor Hill selected Bob Shelton as city manager, the first real

professional city manager we ever had.

While the city had improved from its “Sin City” days, there were still a

few slot machines in private clubs and Bal Week had become a pain in the

neck. And so Dora hired a new chief of police, Jim Glavis, a tough,

retired chief of detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department. His

instructions were to the point -- put an end to Bal Week.

Glavis did. That next Bal Week, it wasn’t safe to be a juvenile on the

streets of Newport Beach. Glavis arrested as many as 350 juveniles in one

night. It wasn’t pretty, but it was effective. The next Easter week, the

kids went to Palm Springs.

And so it is that I consider Dora Hill the single most important person

in the political history of our town, and, Dora, wherever you are, I’m

sorry I missed you by a decade, but what’s a decade between old friends?

* JUDGE GARDNER is a Corona del Mar resident and former judge. His

regular column runs Tuesdays.