The next time Marcie Buford steps into Hanford City Council Chambers, she will enter as a councilwoman and leave as a retiree. Buford, 79, officially retires from the council at its regular meeting scheduled for Tuesday. Just as she steps down from the dais, her successor, Sue Sorensen, will be sworn in to the District B seat that represents an area spanning downtown and central to north Hanford. Buford, the longest-serving member of the current city council, did not seek re-election this year. First elected in 1988, she has continuously served on the top city decision-making body for 20 years. "I just figured it's time," Buford said during a recent interview at her north Hanford home. "I've got other things to do; I'm looking forward to retirement."

Buford, a businesswoman, has no definite plans for the immediate future, other than continuing to manage two area convenience stores she owns. She says she would like to travel as much as she likes to spend her days relaxed playing the piano -- her favorite hobby since she was a first-grader.

Buford says she is comfortable with Sorensen taking over her position on the council.

"I think she is a known proven person very much committed to this community," Buford. "She has a history of getting in and doing what she thought was best for the community. She'd be a marvelous replacement for me."

At the most recent council meeting, Buford was treated to a round of farewell comments from fellow councilmembers. Councilman Dan Chin credited her for being a proponent in architecting a plan a decade ago to develop 12th Avenue and Lacey Boulevard as the city's regional retail center, calling the time a "defining moment in city history" that changed the way the city looks today.

In a humorous moment, Councilman Dave Thomas quipped about Buford saying that "I sat next to her over the last two years. Whenever I said something she didn't like, my leg got some beating."

Her roots to Hanford

Buford was born in Sioux City, Iowa, to an Irish father and a French mother from South Dakota. Her father was a salesman for Standard Oil Company in Indiana and her mother, a real estate broker. During her childhood, her family moved to Minneapolis then settled in Los Angeles, as her father started working for Douglas Aircraft Company.

Buford attended University of California, Los Angeles -- where her granddaughter attends today -- majoring in music and minoring in business. In 1950, she married her late husband Bill Buford, who was born and raised in Hanford.

Bill Buford was drafted into the Army during the Korean War. And after the war, the couple decided to move to Hanford. It was 1956.

Buford recalls her first impression of Hanford as a "gorgeous town."

"I can remember coming up here to meet his parents. Highway 198 coming into Hanford had an umbrella of tall trees lined on both sides -- it was the prettiest entrance," Buford said. "And Douty Street was the same way. It was just a gorgeous town, I thought."

Business woman

Buford had always had a penchant for business. "Just hearing about what's happening in the business world, I was interested. My husband was good at telling stories about what happened during the business day when he gets home."

Her first business opportunity came when she handled the operation of a Texaco gas station in Coalinga until the gas shortage hit during the Vietnam war. The store was eventually sold. "But it gave me a taste of how things worked," Buford said.

Then the Bufords had a service station on Irwin Street. But the income wasn't good enough, so she remodeled it into a convenience store thinking it would help increase revenues. The business then flourished, she said. "I got to prove it, and it grew like Topsy from there." Jon

Community service

Buford got her first taste in public service when she served on the grand jury for 18 months. "It was an eye-opener and accounts for probably a lot of my political career," she said.

In 1976, the Hanford Elementary School District had a vacancy on the board. Not wanting to spend money to hold an election, the board was looking into appointing Buford.

But Simon Lakritz, an educator and a liberal community activist who died this year, found an opponent. "He said he didn't like back-room deals, so he went and found someone to run and insisted on an election," Buford said. "So I ran and won."

After 12 years on the school board, an opportunity came up and people encouraged her to run for the city council at the height of the controversy surrounding GWF's proposal to run a coal-burning power plant in south Hanford. Buford was against using coal as fuel.

"The GWF mess was going on, and a bunch of people twisted my arm to run for the council," Buford said. "It wasn't an easy decision to do that. But I agreed with the opponent of the coal-burning aspect of the GWF proposal, so I ran. The rest is history."

Economy

"The economic piece of the city is one of the things I was most interested in," Buford says.

She sat on the Kings Waste and Recycling Authority Board since its inception in 1989. She also served on the Kings County Economic Development Corporation board as well as Main Street Hanford board. Most recently, Buford represented Kings County on the California Partnership for San Joaquin Valley, a governor-appointed body to give the underdog region a political voice. Most notably, Buford fought for funding for the Highway 198 expressway project between Hanford and Visalia -- a project now projected to finish in 2012.

Recent controversy

Her no-nonsense approach to leadership and conservative ideology have not always been popular with some segments of the community.

Buford was most openly criticized by the public in 2003, when she strongly opposed offering domestic partnership coverage for city health insurance, although it would have resulted in little premium increase for the city.

A female senior officer with the police department, with the backing of the union, was requesting the city council adopt a policy making domestic partnership coverage an available health care benefit option for city employees. The law, passed by the legislature, was sitting on Gov. Gray Davis' desk for him to sign into law at the time. In the face of numerous public testimonies supporting the officer's position, Buford spoke up against the request saying it was against her personal belief.

"What they do is their business. I don't want to know," Buford said, recalling the events at the time. "That's just where I am on it. I've realized it's not a popular thing to express."

Points of pride

Buford walks into the sunset proud of what the city council was able to accomplish with the Joint Educational Center -- a joint venture between the city, COS and the high school, which is currently under construction on the west side.

"The way the county and the city worked together was really unique," Buford said. "It makes taxpayer dollars go a long way. I'm a great proponent of working together ... but none of these things (that) happened was mine alone."

The reporter can be reached at 583-2429.