Sound and Silence
Friends and strangers never had trouble distinguishing between them. He was the silent type, she the more outspoken.
But none doubted his matching resolve and his broad landscape of knowledge.
Mrs. McCain’s unusually penetrating comprehension of the community infrastructure propelled her to a lofty pedestal that has been occupied by hardly anyone else in the 90-year history of Culver City.
Unusual Deference
Jackie McCain commanded the kind of respect that proud professionals in a field rarely accord to a lay person, no matter how highly regarded.
At City Hall, a source said that until about a year and a half ago, the city routinely dispatched Environmental Impact Reports to the McCain home, seeking her valued expert feedback.
City Hall’s Motivation
They knew she would carefully, thoughtfully sift through every line of the notoriously voluminous, undeniably dull documents.
Mrs. McCain would joke about the extraordinary but prized assignment.
From City Manager Jerry Fulwood on down, no one doubted that she combed through every arcane phrase, especially as concepts would affect her dear community.
A Loss of Institutional Memory
“The deaths of Charles and Jackie, in the same year, are a huge loss for the community,” Mayor Alan Corlin told the newspaper this afternoon.
Personally and professionally, he added.
“Not only were they two friends, both of them were intimately familiar with the workings of the city,” the Mayor said.
“Many people are talkers. Few are doers. The McCains were talkers and doers.”
What Made Her Treasured
City Councilman Steve Rose said that “Jackie’s ability to focus on the long-range perspective for Culver City, rather than choosing one developer over another, was unusual and valued.”
Together, then, Mr. McCain, a third-generation carpenter involved in numerous spheres in Culver City, and Mrs. McCain formed one of the most recognized and effective husband-and-wife teams in Culver City annals.
For many years they were regulars at Monday night City Council meetings she ran one time for Council and lost narrowly, friends recalled, and at neighborhood meetings.
Internal Strength Never Ebbed
In later years, when Mrs. McCain found it more difficult than when she was younger, to navigate her way to the speaker’s podium, listeners in Council Chambers were amazed by the sheer strength of her tones and the unassailable soundness of her reasoning.
She is survived by her three children, Kathleen Ann (John Engman), Chuck Jr. (Marilyn) and Roderick John (Linda), five grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and three American Field Service daughters (Jenny, Fleur and Liva).
Funeral details were not yet known.
