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| Affiliation | Republican |
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| Name | Margaret Taylor Hance |
| Address |
Phoenix, Arizona , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
July 02, 1923
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| Died | April 29, 1990
(66 years)
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| Contributor | Thomas Walker |
| Last Modifed | Juan Croniqueur
Feb 22, 2016 05:44pm |
| Tags |
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| Info | Margaret Taylor Hance
1923 – 1990
Throughout her life, Margaret Taylor Hance followed the lesson she learned as a child: if I person had a roof over his head and three square meals a day, he owes service to the community. First as a Volunteer and then in the political arena, Margaret gave tirelessly to the city of Phoenix , and it honored her as its first woman mayor.
The youngest of three children, she was born on July 2, 1923, in Spirit Lake , Iowa , to Glen C. and Helen (Kenny) Taylor. When Margaret was three years old, the family moved to Mesa , Arizona , and in 1930 settled in Phoenix , where her father became a senior vice president of Valley National Bank. She gICW L11) enjoying all school sports, particularly basketball and baseball. She also played tennis and golf and participated in a rodeo drill team in Prescott . From 1942 to 1944, Margaret attended the University of Arizona , and then enrolled in Scripps College in Claremont , California , from which she graduated in 1945.
During these college years, she met Richard M. Hance, an aviation cadet stationed it Luke Army Air Force Base in Arizona . They were married on August 11, 1945. The couple lived in Amarillo , Texas , where Richard was stationed, and then returned to Phoenix following his discharge. Richard went to work for the Valley National Insurance Company, eventually becoming its executive vice president.
The mother of three children Galen, Richard, and Edward, Margaret chose to make her family her career, but she followed her parents' advice, volunteering her time to the PTA, Cub Scouts, Little League, and Trinity Episcopal Church. As the children grew, her community work expanded to include St. Luke's Hospital Board of Visitors, the Junior League of Phoenix, the United Fund, the Fiesta Bowl Committee, the Harrington Arthritis Center , and the Arizona Kidney Foundation. Honorary chair of fundraising for the Mercy Care Foundation at St. Joseph's Hospital, Margaret also served as a leader in organizing fund drives for the March of Dimes and the Girl Scouts.
Besides volunteering, Margaret did documentaries of public affairs for KINK television station between 1967 and 1970. Then from 1971 to 1975, she wrote and produced the Holiday World Travel radio show, which was nationally syndicated. In 1970 Margaret's husband died, forcing her to pick a new path for her future. She came to the conclusion that city government was a place she could make a contribution.
Margaret had gotten a taste of politics the previous five years as member and chair of the Phoenix Parks and Recreation Advisory Board. She realized that she could do more to aid the park system and make other improvements from a position on the city council. The Charter Government Committee had controlled city politics since 1949, when a large group of leading businessmen decided to back mayor and Council candidates who would end years of corruption and open the city to growth. Margaret knew she needed the committee's support if she was to have a chance of winning her first bid in the political arena. Sharing the committee's ideals, Margaret was named to the charter's 1971 slate and easily won.
Councilperson Hance continued to improve the city's park system, and she addressed one of the public's biggest concerns in the early 1970s: the encroachment of development on Phoenix 's mountains. Margaret led those who urged the city to preserve these mountains by acquiring them and adding them to the city's parks. Using a special bond election and federal revenue sharing, the city bought Camelback Mountain , Squaw Peak , and South and North Mountains to create the Phoenix Mountain Preserve. Her determination to see this project completed VallWd Malgill0 the unofficial title of "Mother of the Mountain Preserve." In 1973 she Fall successfully for a second term on the charter slate and served as vice mayor.
Charter's dominance of government was beginning to wane during this period of Margaret's political career. In twenty short years Phoenix had grown from a medium sized city to a large metropolis, and many felt that the charter committee was not changing with the times. Single mindedly focused on clean government, it sccliled to ignore the issues of ethnic and minority groups and the problem of inadequate freeways.
When Mayor Tirn Barrow, a charter politician, declined to run for reelection in 1975, Margaret decided to try for the position of mayor. Convinced that Phoenicians would not elect a woman for at least another ten years, the charter committee backed the unknown candidate Lynian Davidson instead of her. Margaret's decision to run as an independent candidate illustrated her sensitivity to the changes in Phoenix . Although her views on government had not changed, she realized that charter sponsorship was now more of a liability than an asset.
Forging ahead on her own, Margaret recmitCd a small but loyal group of followers (mostly women) to raise money for her campaign. She won the election along with five, out of seven, independent council candidates. The results marked the end of the rule of the Charter Government Committee. As Margaret began her term as Phoenix 's first woman mayor in 1976, she led a city facing new problems. Phoenix politics were in transition, and new alignments and faces appeared. As mayor, Margaret met greater opposition then she had as a Council member, but she proved more than equal to the task, winning four two year terms (1976-1983), a precedent. Mayor Hance kept her humor in the process of governing the city. Her sardonic wit was unquenchable. She answered questions directly and unapologetically presented her beliefs.
During the urban crisis of the middle and late 1970s, Margaret gave economic development top priority. She had always been pro-business. Now she endeavored to attract new industries to the City, Convinced that this was the best path to progress and prosperity. Another goal was the revitalization of downtown Phoenix . She initiated plans to expand the Civic Plaza , create Patriot's Park, and construct the Herberger Theater and the Arizona Science and Technology Museum. Private developers constructed new housing downtown, and high-rise, buildings appeared along Central Avenue. Many of these projects reached maturity after she had left office.
Mayor Hance believed that improving transportation was an essential step toward economic prosperity. Despite its rapidly growing population, the city had not developed freeways or maintained a mass transit system, concentrating instead on arterial streets. During her tenure, Margaret got the route and funding approved for the Papago Freeway and Squaw Peak Parkway . Hundreds of miles of roads were paved and maintained, and Sky Harbor Airport opened a third terminal building.
Another concern of Margaret's was the city's dependency on federal funds. Margaret believed that the broad social spending of the 1960s had caused people to expect services without paying for them. Now these funds were drying up in the recessions of 1974-75 and 1979-80. Mayor Hance persuaded the City Council to change the participants of the Public Service Employment program over to local money and then on to independence. Her foresight prevented a heavy financial burden from falling on the city when the federal government abruptly ended the program in September of 1979. Despite wanting to lessen dependence on federal funds, Margaret believed that Phoenix and Arizona Should receive their due from the nation's capital. She traveled frequently to Washington to lobby for transfer of funds from the decaying cities of the Frost Belt to the growing cities of the Still Belt.
Margaret tried to help Phoenix avoid the problem of eastern cities that faced a shrinking tax base. Rather than encouraging the development of bedroom communities outside the city, she favored aggressive anncx~ition . Her approach during this time of budget tightening, was to emphasize basic services and streamline costs. For example, she supported mechanized garbage pickup, which used only one man to drive an automated truck, a major saving in cost.
A 1975 report listed Phoenix as the city with the highest rate of crime against property. Margaret made crime prevention another high priority, supporting Neighborhood Watch Mid Cabs on Patrol (COPS) to help the police and forming a task force to combat the high number of arsolls . She viewed the Central Arizona Project (CAP) as the best solution to the ever-present problem of water. To control floods, she called for new dikes at Sky Harbor Airport and new dams on the Salt and Verde rivers. The Community recognized her service with a variety of awards. In1978 she was named Woman of the Year by the Advertising Club. She also received the Don Bolles Memorial Award from the Arizona Kachina Club, the Centennial Award of the Salvation Army, and the University of Arizona 's Alumni Achievement Award. Perhaps her most amusing distinction was being named to Women Sports Magazine's Tomboy's Who's Who in 1977.
Margaret Hance gained national prominence during her tenure. She acted as a trustee at the U.S. Conference of Mayors and served on the board of directors of the National League of Cities. In 1982 she became president of the National Conference of Republican Mayors and Elected Officials. Other positions included conference delegate to the OCED and treasurer of the League of Arizona Cities and Towns.
As these recognition's suggest, Margaret was a popular mayor who had fair success in accomplishing her goals. One Outward sign of this was the upgrading of the city's bond iSSUC to all AA rating. She was not without her critics, however. Opponents accused her of being anti labor, encouraging "leap frog" annexation, and running a closed shop city liall . During her last term, Margaret's popularity began to slip when she supported the construction of a high-rise building outside of the high-rise con idor plan. Next the public criticized the Squaw Peak Parkway's citizens' panel for being composed mainly of business interests. A pro neighborhood movement was growing that supported election of the city council by district. In November of 1983 the voters passed an amendment to the city charter initiating this electoral change. Margaret had lost more ground with the voters by steadily defending an at large council system. Realizing that the city's views had changed and her philosophy of government was no longer carrying the day, in 1983 she, announced that she would not run for a fifth term.
Margaret's abilities had attracted the attention of President Ronald Reagan, who appointed her to the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations and the Presidential Federalism Advisory Committee. Upon her retirement as mayor, the Reagan reelection campaign called on her to be co-chair along with U.S. Senator Paul LaXalt. Accepting the appointment, Margaret left Phoenix temporarily for Washington, D.C. At first she was in charge of recruiting selected officials, but in April of 1984 her role expanded to include gaining the help of special interest groups and making sure that campaign officials heard their concerns. In nine months she traveled 120,000 miles. After Reagan's reelection, Margaret would have accepted a cabinet position, preferably Housing and Urban Development or Transportation, believing that those were the two areas she understood the best. However, the heads of those departments, Sain Pierce and Elizabeth Dole, respectively, had no desire to leave. In January 1985 the Reagan administration quietly offered her the post of director of the General Services Administration. She rejected the offer, stating that the job was heavy on administration and light on dealing with people.
Returning to Phoenix the next month, Margaret anticipated time for relaxation. Soon, however, she was directing the Jon Kyle for Congress Committee, returning a favor for his help in one of her mayoral reelection campaigns. She also filled her time with public speaking, relishing graduation addresses in particular. She spoke at her alma mater, Scripps College; at Orme Ranch School in Dewey, Arizona; and at President Reagan's alma mater, Eureka College, in Illinois, where she received all honorary doctoral degree.
Margaret maintained her link to national politics in 1987 by working for the Fund for America's Future, the precursor of Vice president George Bush's presidential campaign. 'The following year, Margaret chaired the Bush campaign in Arizona. Surprisingly, she held no official position within the state's Republican party. In 1988, a year of controversy over Arizona Governor Evan Mecham, Margaret served as head Arizona delegate to the Republican Convention and succeeded in keeping herself free of what she called the "current unpleasantness."
Soon after Bush's election as president, Margaret discovered that she had cancer. As her health weakened, she withdrew from her various activities but never lost her sense of humor. She died in Phoenix on April 29, 1990. Many people sang the praises of this wonderful lady. Arizona Governor Rose Mofford, former governors Jack Williams and Paul Fannin, and several former Phoenix mayors paid their respects at her funeral, and President and Mrs. Bush, friends since the 1984 Reagan campaign, sent their personal condolences. On May 8, 1990, the Arizona State Senate passed a resolution enumerating her accomplishments. As a final tribute, in January 1991 the city of Phoenix named the new park on the six-block deck of the downtown tunnel of the Papago Freeway, Hance Park . It was a fitting memorial to a dedicated advocate of "urban beauty, parkland, inner city revitalization, and modern transportation."
Margaret Taylor Hance was a unique woman in the history of Phoenix . Fulfilling her parents' advice to give to the community, she did so as a mother, a volunteer, and finally, as her sister Dorothy Heitel said, is "a highly talented, competent, ethical, and vibrant woman in government." Gracious, deeply caring, yet independent minded, she will be remembered for her service as mayor during a period of dramatic growth and, as her executive assistant C. A. Howlett said, for loving her community "like a family."
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