Sally Hoyt was appointed 2008 Woman of the Year for Bell Gardens by Assemblyman Hector De La Torre.

Sally Ortiz Hoyt, born May 3, 1930, in Los Angeles California to naturalized parents. She was brought up in a caring family of sixteen brothers and sisters. She attended both public and Catholic schools near her home. Mother of three girls and one boy also step mother to two boys and one girl.  Now a grandmother to nineteen grandchildren and great grandmother to twenty one great grandchildren and recently great-great grandmother to one great-great granddaughter . Sally has been a resident of Bell Gardens since 1963 and active in the community for more than thirty years. Before she retired, she was employed as a quality control inspector for aerospace companies in Commerce and Downey.  She has worked almost every election in Bell Gardens as a poll worker and most recently as an Inspector responsible for all functions of the polling place.  Sally attends every regularly scheduled City Council meeting.  She was appointed to the Bell Gardens Cultural Heritage Commission where she served two years as chairperson.  Then she was appointed to the Planning Commission and later to the Police Commission and today she is again chairperson of the Cultural Heritage Commission.  For the past three years she has been working with the Bell Gardens Police Department as a volunteer in the VIPS program.  

Appointed Historian for the City of Bell Gardens by former Mayor Ramiro Morales.  She has provided the community much historical background of Bell Gardens.  She and her family are part owners of the historical Gage Mansion located at 7000 East Gage Ave.   The Mansion is the second oldest adobe in Los Angeles County and the oldest building in the City of Bell Gardens.  The building was completed in 1810.

You may see her cruising the streets of Bell Gardens in her Jeep station wagon marked with the VIPS logo.