Public Accomplishments
As mayor, Shell promoted civic self-esteem. She reached out to the minority community. She chided NBC The Tonight Show host Johnny Carson for his reference to "beautiful downtown Bakersfield" (Carson also referred to Burbank, though his remarks were not considered malicious). “I tried to get Johnny Carson to come here and see for himself . He never made it", Shell remembers.
A partial list of her accomplishments include:
(1) Founding the Beautiful Bakersfield Committee with an annual awards dinner and the restoration of the community Christmas parade
(2) Establishing a committee of veteran’s organizations to build a memorial to Medal of Honor recipient Larry Pierce of Bakersfield and to all from Kern County who served in the Vietnam War. The memorial is located at the county courts building.
(3) Creating the Bakersfield Historical Preservation Commission
(4) Establishing the annual Bakersfield Prayer Breakfast
(5) Serving on the California Local Government Task Force under appointment from Republican Governor George Deukmejian
Read more about this topic: Mary K. Shell
Famous quotes containing the word public:
“Nothing is so foolish, they say, as for a man to stand for office and woo the crowd to win its vote, buy its support with presents, court the applause of all those fools and feel self-satisfied when they cry their approval, and then in his hour of triumph to be carried round like an effigy for the public to stare at, and end up cast in bronze to stand in the market place.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)