Hello to all the future people who will be reading this. My name is Lorraine Boyce and I was fortunate and very privileged to be the first woman mayor in the City of Escondido.There were no freeways, but Grand Avenue was a wonderful wide street with a big circle and a flag at the intersection of Grand and Broadway. I arrived in Escondido in December of 1954 when the population was 9,000. Becoming the first woman mayor was not exactly on my to-do list.As a member of the League of Women voters in the ‘60s, I studied housing problems. I became well-known in town and was involved in a little bit of everything: working as an RN, a Red Cross swimming instructor, as well as serving as a Girl Scout leader and on the boards of the YMCA and Planned Parenthood. In 1970, I ran for a seat on the City Council on the issue of housing for low income residents and won big because I had been involved in the community at the grass-roots level. The old-boy network was not thrilled to have a woman sit on the council. Nevertheless, I served for 2 terms and was appointed mayor by the Council in 1975 serving for 2 years during my second term on the council. I am proud of all that we accomplished in the next few years. We were successful in getting a grant to build the Joslyn Senior Center, we secured Kit Carson Park with state bond money, we oversaw the development of Dixon Lake and the building of the Dam, as well as building the I-15 bypass. The population had then grown to 32,000.The most fun I had as mayor was the saga of the Ritz Theater. In 1975 the only movie theater was on Grand and Juniper. Shortly thereafter, the Pussycat Enterprises bought it, and we soon learned that it was showing pornography films. We couldn’t figure out how to get rid of them because they had a legitimate business license. As word got out, there was an uproar in town as most people didn’t want that kind of thing in our community. I met with a group of men and women who stood outside the theater with picket signs and sent two undercover police officers in to the films. Our attorney advised us to file a lawsuit to show that the theater was a nuisance. When I called the owner in Beverly Hills to discuss the matter, he merely stated, “I don’t care about little old ladies with tennis shoes in Escondido.” He then declared that as long as the Pussycat Enterprises theater was making money, they would stay. The lawsuit went forward, and when our day in court came, we packed the courthouse with people who opposed the theater. Their Beverly Hills lawyers showed up looking like the Mafia. Our argument was simple: the theater does not fit the image of what we want in Escondido. To our delight, the judge ruled in our favor: “No more Pussycat Theater in District 11. We won and the theater disappeared.Since I served as the first woman mayor of Escondido, there have been two other women to hold that office. I feel very satisfied with the achievements made during my tenure. Escondido is my home and I continue to be active in supporting activities that make our community a better place in which to live. I hope you enjoyed my little epitaph. Less