https://www.seattlepi.com/local/politics/article/Jean-Godden-book-Citizen-Jean-gossip-public-policy-13567771.php
Jean Godden remembers: Juicy gossip and public policy
By Joel Connelly, SeattlePI
Published 11:33 am PST, Monday, January 28, 2019
Seattle City Council member Jean Godden, pictured holding a fish at Pike Place Market on Oct. 3, 2006. The picture adorns cover of her new book "Citizen Jean."
Photo: Seattle Municipal Archive
The cover of "Citizen Jean" promises "inside Seattle stories," and former City Council member and longtime newspaper columnist Jean Godden delivers with what Barbara Walters used to call "very personal" tales of our town.
But reminiscences from 41 years as a media maven and politician offer only a peripheral view of the outside story of a city's transformation and its ongoing growing pains.
The reader hears of the episode where Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen shot his neighbor's intruding Labrador retriever "Red," with a pellet gun, and of Blethen's potty-mouthed email to the publisher of Eastide Journal, which had agreed to publish a newspaper put out by striking Times and P-I workers.
There is, however, nary a mention of Jeff Bezos or Amazon, the goliath which has enveloped the Times' neighborhood and set Seattle on a path to painful growth. Perhaps the Bezos' divorce will head to mention in a second edition.
Godden worked on the editorial page of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, later wrote a four-times-weekly column, then defected to the Seattle Times.
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After losing her Sunday column for supporting the 2000-2001 newspaper strike, Godden left Fairview Fannie in 2003 to run for City Council. She served 12 years, but went a race too far. Godden did not make it past her 2015 primary.
"Citizen Jean" covers episodes of Seattle history which should not be lost to history, such as plans to plow a freeway -- the R.H. Thomson Expressway -- through the Central Area and University of Washington Arboretum. Citizen resistance, and votes of the people, stopped the Expressway and the Bay Freeway.
The book is vivid in spots, sketchy and hasty in others. We read of Gracie Hansen and her showgirls at the 1962 World's Fair, but nary a mention of the "illness" that kept President Kennedy from closing the fair. The illness was the Cuban Missile Crisis.
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The columnist's least favorite Seattle Mayor was Charley Royer. "Come January 1978, Royer was encouraged enough to quit his job as KING's news analyst, a move essential for any professional journalist, especially one charged with commenting on local politics," Godden writes.
Nope. Royer ran for Mayor and was elected in 1977.
Godden writes about the later divorces of Charley and Deputy Mayor Bob Royer, and takes a poke at deputy mayor Carol Lewis. She repeats the old story of the too-boisterous "spring wine and strawberries" party at the University of Washington, involving the Royers and KING pundit Don McGaffin, that drew attention of UW campus police.
We learn much less about Seattle during the 12 years (1977-1989) when Royer was Mayor, an era when Seattle began to be celebrated in national news media as America's "most livable" and beginnings on the city's transformation to a technology center.
"Citizen Jean" is full of tales about beefy, patronizing male bosses, e.g. P-I publishers Virgil Fassio and J.D. Alexander. It lacks any real discussion of newspapers' rapid decline, and the courageous and desperate attempts to keep the Times afloat.
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On council, her greatest cause became pay equity, and the income disparity between men and women in this self-consciously progressive city.
She did yeoman service, early in her council tenure, guiding Seattle City Light through a rate increase and selection of a new superintendent -- oops, CEO. While ascribing her 2015 defeat to ageism, Godden had clearly lost grasp of non-gender issues in her last race.
Other characters in the book: Ex-Mayor Norm Rice is profiled and praised. Although now in exile, Ed Murray is given credit for hammering together the city's phased-in $15-an-hour minimum wage. Freeway fighter Margaret Tunks is lionized, although she had plenty of bipartisan company.
Godden pulls teeth in places. She takes pains to cite cooperation with Council colleague Nick Licata. Why, then, did Godden endorse a Nicata challenger and speak against him to 46th District Democrats?
"Citizen Jean" has its shrewd observations. Mayor Mike McGinn employed "a largely male bicycle-riding personal staff." Council member Kshama Sawant is "never reluctant to take full credit" for achievements crafted by others.
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Of opinionated scribes at The Stranger, Godden writes: "Women, especially older women, even those with a liberal outlook, suffer derisive putdowns."
"Citizen Jean" is a page turner. Its 200 pages are an easy, rapid read, especially if you have an appetite for insider media gossip and stories. But, like footprints in the snow, it is a work of superficial impressions not likely to linger.
Still, Jean Godden has served the city well. For instance, Godden is correct claiming one key reason for Seattle's pace setting paid family leave policy was that she "had not shut up about it for two full years."
The book's full title: "Citizen Jean: Riots, Rogues, Rumors and Other Inside Seattle Stories." It is put out by Washington State University Press, and costs $22.95.
Godden will be at the Elliott Bay Book Company on Sunday, Feb. 10, and a week later, Feb. 17, at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park, followed by an appearance Tuesday, Feb. 19 at the University Book Store.
Columnist Joel Connelly has written about politics for the P-I since 1973.
Email Joel at joelconnelly@seattlepi.com and follow him on Facebook.