Most readers have probably heard by now that former Mayor Pro Tem/former City Council Member Jackie Goodman passed away on Tuesday June 3.
Jackie and I were friends, colleagues on the Council, and we shared an era in Austin. We also lived less than a mile apart, in South Austin between South 1st and the railroad tracks. That’s in the 78745 zip code, described aptly on a local bumpersticker as “78745, when you’re priced out of 78704.” I know that bumpersticker applied to both of us.
Like many of us, Jackie was not born in Austin, but she found a home here. She and her husband Jack Goodman, who died in 2022, moved from El Paso to Austin in the late 1960s. Her father was an officer in the U.S. Army and consequently the family lived in many different places. Jackie graduated from high school in El Paso and also studied at the El Paso Art Academy.
There have already been at least two published obituaries for, or tributes to, Jackie. Michael Barnes wrote one in the Statesman and Jo Clifton, also a friend of Jackie’s, wrote one in the Austin Monitor. I recommend them both. Clifton, in particular gave the opportunity to a number of people who knew Jackie over the years to provide memories about her. I’m not sure if Michael Barnes knew Jackie personally, but he also gave her a fitting tribute.
Barnes quoted from a statement accompanying Jackie’s induction into the Austin Women’s Hall of Fame. “From land use planning, environmental stewardship, social services and education to animal rights, civil liberties, libraries and neighborhoods, during her tenure at City Council, she found ways to give voice to underserved and underrepresented points of view and sought balance to the challenges.”
This is a very on target summary of Jackie’s political career and approach. I can think of accomplishments she made in each of the areas mentioned. I will discuss a few of those here, but first I want to talk about one way that Jackie quietly, and responsibly, wielded her power on the City Council — and how she used that power to benefit Austin. Also, part of this has to do with Jackie’s artistry — another of her talents — and specifically her calligraphic handwriting.
Jackie Goodman’s Judicious Use of Power
When I was elected to the City Council in 1996 Jackie had already been there for a full three-year term. (We both left in June, 2005.) On many key issues the new Council was often, though not always, divided right down the middle. On one side were Mayor Bruce Todd and Council Members Ronney Reynolds and Eric Mitchell. On the other were Gus Garcia, Beverly Griffith (also new to the Council) and me.
Jackie sided with Gus, Beverly and me on most issues, forming a solid Council majority, but she was a very independent thinker. She did not automatically side with anyone on any particular issue. She went through her own decision making process and came to her own conclusions. That often left her as the swing vote on the 1996-97 Council. I’m not sure if she agonized over this role or not, but, if she did, it was not apparent.
I remember how the deadlocked Council would wait for her to come up with a plan. Sometimes we would even take a recess from the meeting while we waited. Then Jackie would emerge from the break room behind the Council Chamber with a compromise written in blue ink on Council stationary in her beautiful handwriting. Sometimes everyone accepted Jackie’s compromise proposal and the votes were 7-0. Others were four to three.
One of the four to three votes was in December 1996 over the future path of Austin Energy, then simply called the Electric Utility Department. It’s way too complex to go into details here, but Jackie came up in with a compromise to a plan being proposed by Beverly, Gus and I. That vote turned out to be critical in setting the city and utility on a path to financial health, and in calming the battle over its future.
As her friend and former aide Ann Denkler remembers Jackie worked hard to include everyone involved in an issue in her decision making. She tried to come up with compromises that reflected everybody’s interest. This could sometimes be frustrating for those of us who had to wait on her to work things out. But, she forged truly sound compromises.
I tell these stories about Jackie’s crucial role in brokering, or dictating, compromises because it illustrates the quiet, but steady and resolute way that she used her power for what she determined was in the best interest of the City. Folks should not get the idea, however, that forging compromises was the only governing skill Jackie Goodman had, or the only approach she took.
Sometimes she determined that a compromise was not possible, or merited. And, she was never reluctant to battle for policies that she felt were in the City’s best interest. Also, on particular zoning cases, Jackie sometimes decided that a no vote was the best policy. As Denkler also remembers, “When she said no she meant no.”
Overall, Jackie’s style was steady and inclusionary. This was one of the qualities that led to her being respected by virtually everyone involved in City governance and politics. She was beloved by neighborhood and environmental activists, but developers respected her too. She was a police reform advocate, but was respected by the police. She was widely admired in East Austin and Austin’s minority communities. She was a Democrat, but had the respect of many Republicans. For instance I texted former Travis County Commissioner Gerald Daugherty, a Republican, to let him know that Jackie had passed away. He texted back, “Rest her wonderful soul.”
Now, I want to turn back to the list from the Austin Women’s Hall of Fame. There’s not space or time to cover every issue listed there, although it is true that Jackie was involved in all of them. I will highlight just a few here. One, she was an integral part of major accomplishments on the environment. For one thing she attended Save Barton Creek Association almost every Monday for 30 years.
She and Jack Goodman were also key players in the writing of the Save Our Springs (SOS) Ordinance. Jack was an important part of Austin’s environmental community himself. He and Jackie were, by the time of the SOS era, veteran environmentalists. They negotiated with more new guard environmentalists to draft a compromise — but still very strong — ordinance that they felt Austin voters would support. The ordinance that Jack and Jackie helped craft was passed by a two-thirds majority of Austin voters in August 1992. The SOS Ordinance continues to protect Barton Springs today.
Other items in the Austin Women’s Hall of Fame summary touch on Jackie’s work with residents of East Austin and leaders of Austin’s minority communities at the time. Her legacy there is reflected — among other things — in social services to which she devoted considerable attention and care, plus the many facilities that were built or enhanced during her time on the Council. Jackie was also close with many people in East Austin whose involvement in politics dated back to the Civil Right Movement.
Another major initiative on which Jackie led was establishing neighborhood plans. In fact she was the driving force behind this often painstaking effort which was intended to protect existing neighborhoods, while planning for where to locate additional housing and other services within them. Recent Councils have stopped following or honoring neighborhood plans.
Also a Friend to Cats
No review of Jackie Goodman’s life would be complete without noting her love for, and devotion to, animals.
Like the rest of her legacy Jackie’s actions in this area are difficult to boil down to a single example. But, I’m going to concentrate on feral cats. Jackie looked after a host of feral cats by taking them to the veterinarian to get spayed or neutered and cleaned up. Here we get to what some might call Jackie’s quirky side, which she definitely had. During one period Jackie would bring feral cats in transport cages to Council meetings and leave them under the dais or the Executive Session table. Nobody complained, at least not to Jackie.
I remember one contentious annexation hearing where speaker after speaker slammed the Council for planning to annex their neighborhood. Being an annexation hearing it was held within the proposed annexation area. In this case that meant a country club which had a bar right next to the auditorium where the hearing was held. That led to some extra colorful attacks on the Council from the annexees.
As I left after the hearing I saw that Jackie was sitting in the lobby and had one of the cats out of the cage and crawling on her lap and on the sofa. Several of the previously angry, soon to be annexed, residents gathered around to pet the cat.
Last week former City Manager Toby Futrell talked about about how soft spoken Jackie was and said she was the type of person that her (Futrell’s) mother would describe as “an iron fist in a velvet glove.”
Yes, Jackie Goodman was an iron fist in a velvet glove who brought rescued cats to City Council meetings and kept them under the dais, and she did a lot of good for Austin.
In more recent years Jackie worked at GAVA (Go Austin Vamos Austin) as their Deputy Director. As Director Carmen Llanes explained Goodman’s job in an email, Jackie “advised younger community organizers on early childhood advocacy, Austin’s land development rules, neighborhood planning and Austin’s environmental and activist history.” She worked at GAVA from 2018 to 2020. She left to take care of Jack after he had a stroke. Llanes said Jackie “stayed in close touch with those she mentored at the organization.”
Jackie remained focused on government and politics to the end. Always diverse in her interests, she also recently made arts related posts on social media, which were shared by friends. These posts mentioned nothing about politics.
I last texted with Jackie when I checked in to see if she was out of the hospital, and told her we wanted to invite her and Janis, her sister, over soon. She said she was out, but in “technical isolation.” She then joked, “I will get better if it kills me.” She then started discussing the local and national political situations before signing off, “Love Adela. Love you back.”
That was my friend and more importantly a friend of Austin. We’re going to miss her a whole lot.
* Jackie’s sister Janis Morgan lived with her after Jack died. She reports that Jackie did not want a funeral or memorial service. A number of people, however, have decided to outvote Jackie — something that seldom happened during her time on the Council — and have a tribute to her. That has not been scheduled yet, but we will keep people posted.
* Also, Jackie Goodman dedicated her life to Austin but she didn’t make a lot of money doing it. Her friend and longtime political ally Alfred Stanley has set up a Go Fund Me page to help Janis deal with Jackie’s end of life expenses.
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