The mayor of Yorba Linda has the distinction of being “the youngest female mayor in America,” presently 25 years old. This has inspired young women’s magazines and news outlets across the country to feature Tara Campbell as a role model, but the title itself is not nearly as inspiring as what she is doing to lead the city and the Young Civic Leaders of tomorrow.
Mayor Campbell’s rise to public service started at USC where she was pursuing sports journalism but considered the broader reach of television and print journalism to be of better service to the public. After graduation, she made a move to Washington DC to pursue an internship with CSPAN which fell through, but she soon found a better opportunity with a bipartisan nonprofit called No Labels that focused on common-sense legislation, mediating for members of Congress to work together as a team.
Ironically, the government shut down temporarily in 2013 when the branches of government were locking horns over the state of healthcare. When she was released from the internship and returned home to Yorba Linda, she discovered that gridlock and disharmony in government was happening here in her hometown of Yorba Linda and decided that was something she wanted to change.
Her love of sports led her to serve on the Yorba Linda Parks and Recreation Commission, and then she ran for City Council in 2016. The support and encouragement she received from the City Council and residents led to her election as Mayor in 2018 in addition to holding a full-time job. Once a week, she dons a ponytail for basketball in a women’s league.
Mayor Campbell launched the Young Civic Leaders Academy in March, 2019 to teach and encourage high schoolers to get involved in their community.
“I don’t want to see the next generation of young people have fear or disdain for government,” Mayor Campbell says. “I want to show them how to get involved.”
Politics can be intimidating for young people, but Mayor Campbell believes, "If you want to see a change, you need to be a part of that change." In addition, she has updated several of our city's business activities that used to require visiting the city offices. They can now be done online, such as business licensing and "Map Yorba Linda," a public online resource for zoning and planning.
At Mayor Campbell's age, the world is her oyster, but right now she is focused on building community ties. Public service is her calling, and it is her "yes" attitude that keeps us optimistic that greater opportunities will appear on the horizon. Tara Campbell answered the call to represent and lead the team—and to keep the moving the ball forward.
