When Gail Meyers would step up to the microphone at a Novato City Council meeting, council members braced for a telling-off to come but also listened for the jewel of an idea she was known to give.
“She might call people names. She called me names on occasion,” former four-term Novato city councilwoman Carole Dillon Knutson said with a laugh, “but I could forgive that because she really did her work as a gadfly to save the city of Novato from a whole lot of hassle.”
Ms. Meyers, a tenacious fixture in Novato politics for four decades who many recognized by the signature flower in her hair, died on May 23 after battling Alzheimer’s disease. She was 84.
A memorial service celebrating Ms. Meyers’ life is set for 11 a.m. June 22 at Novato City Hall.
While she unsuccessfully ran for a seat on the City Council numerous times, Ms. Meyers left her mark on Novato, so much so that Councilwoman Pat Eklund said Meyers was almost like a sixth council member.
“One thing I admired about Gail is she did her homework,” Eklund said. “She was really a hawk over the city of Novato.”
Had it not been for Ms. Meyers’ diligence, Knutson said, Hamilton may have looked much different than it does today. While Novato was in negotiations with the Department of Defense to transfer the former Hamilton air base property for redevelopment, Ms. Meyers read through six boxes of material and was the only one to point out that crucial documentation was missing. The negotiations at the time were “contentious,” Knutson said, as the department was looking to put up the property for auction for the highest price and the best use, which she said was high-rise affordable housing at the time.
“Without Gail catching that one small piece that was not included in those six bankers’ boxes we would have had to go back to the Department of Defense and we would not have gotten approval,” Knutson said.
Preservation of open space and Novato’s “small town character” were values that Ms. Meyers vigorously defended to the point that she bought an easement on Carmel Hill to prevent it from being further developed, according to Eklund and Ms. Meyers’ family.
Ms. Meyers’ motto when running for council was “Keep the Country in Novato.”
“She was really a woman who never took no as an answer and she really worked hard with the neighbors to preserve Carmel Hill,” Eklund said.
While politics and community issues were a passion of Ms. Meyers’, she held just as much tenacity in her personal life. Her oldest daughter, Gail Anikouchine, remembered her mother for her avid sewing and knitting, making mittens and scarves when they lived in Connecticut during their childhood. In addition, Ms. Meyers was an artist who loved to paint and was a talented pianist, Anikouchine said.
A love of travel was deeply instilled as well. Anikouchine said she is sure that her mother had passed through what would later become Novato during a 1949 road trip through the country with Ms. Meyers’ grandmother, grand-aunt and cousin. After attending college in Connecticut, Ms. Meyers moved to San Francisco in 1959.
A year later, she met her husband Bill and the following year they were married. After moving to Peru, where Bill Meyers opened a location for the international accounting firm he worked for, the couple had their first two daughters, Gail and Sherry, before relocating to Connecticut, where their third daughter, Judith, was born. In 1973, the couple decided to return to California and chose Novato as their new home in 1974.
In later years when she visited her mother, Anikouchine said it was a rare day that Ms. Meyers wouldn’t be recognized by someone around town who saw her at a council meeting. Anikouchine hopes the impression her mother had made on people is carried on by Novato residents.
“I think part of what mom would say is, ‘You have to pay attention and really read and listen to make sure proper protocols are being followed, do your research and consider all sides,” Anikouchine said.
Former Novato planning commissioner Marie Hoch said Ms. Meyers was a strong advocate of transparency and grew to be a friend.
“The whole city was her life and her advocation,” Hoch said. “And she provided a continuity that was really important because staff changes over time, the council changes over time, but Gail was always there for us.”
Ms. Meyers would serve on various city committees and still worked to attend council meetings even as her health declined. On her 80th birthday, she was presented a key to the city in recognition of her work. After attending council meetings for nearly 40 years, her family felt it was important to hold her memorial at the place that was an important part of her life.
“We’re asking everyone to wear a flower in your hair in memory of Gail,” Eklund said.
