Jackie was running for her second at-large Council term when I met her in 2010.  There are a lot of people who knew her better and longer than me, and who are better fit to speak to the incredible range of her work for the more than two decades she was in the legislature or on the Council. 

Speaking personally (and as one of her more questionable hires), in staffing and running her office, Jackie was always first to take a chance on people with limited experience or connections, because at bottom, she really loved and believed in them.  It sounds quaint, but that’s the only way to put it.  She made sure you knew that the pay was going to be terrible, and the hours were going to be much worse than the pay.  But, she promised, if you threw yourself into the work, it would be some of the happiest and most professionally satisfying times of your life.  In my own experience, she proved herself wholly correct.

Jackie deeply loved New Orleans, its people, and the work of the Council she served.  She believed that local government is where the rubber meets the road, and that the decisions made at the municipal level affect the quality of people’s lives much more visibly and personally than anything going on in Baton Rouge or Washington.  She set high standards for her own personal and professional conduct and was a person of uncompromised integrity.  Yet, she was never dogmatic.  She held beliefs like anybody, but her seat on the dais wasn’t a pulpit; she wasn’t one to let ideology get in the way of getting things done.  Her former Council colleagues are the first to say that Jackie was the master of finding a workable compromise, because at her core, she was a realist who knew how to count votes and understood that the perfect is the enemy of the good. 

Jackie worked every weekend and holiday and went to thousands of public and neighborhood meetings.  She returned people’s phone calls.  She listened to the concerns of her colleagues and constituents and was quick to make meaningful accommodation for their perspectives, even when she knew she had the votes to move forward without them.  She was probably the most extraordinary connector of people I’ve ever met.  If you were a Clarkson person, you almost certainly have today at least a dozen friends you regularly keep up with, who, if it weren’t for her, you’d never have met.  She was fond of saying, “I don’t have any enemies.  Sometimes I have opponents, but never enemies.”  This was true.  While she had a long memory, she was quick to forgive.  She was always focused on what’s next, and so long as she was able, she sought to serve others. 

Our friend could always be counted on to show up when we needed her.  I think this later picture of Jackie (below) sitting in the audience of the Council chambers (surrounded by LCIA board and zoning committee members) speaks volumes to what kind of woman she was. It was taken two years ago, and as far as I know, on her last appearance in the chambers she presided over for so many years.  At the request of numerous neighborhood associations spanning the city, she attended a Planning Commission meeting to speak in opposition to a proposed CZO text amendment that she believed violated the Master Plan.  As a private citizen, she filled out her card like the rest of us and waited over two hours for her two-minute turn to speak at the microphone.  Leaning on her walker, she gave her name and address before launching into a speech so wonderful that, in an unheard-of move, the Commission chair stopped the time clock to hear her out.  She said in part:

Do you know why people move here?  Instead of our sister parishes, of which we have many.  Instead of going there, where the crime is lower? And the taxes are lower?  You know what keeps them coming here?  Especially our young professionals…Do you know why they’re here? 

What brings them here are NEIGHBORHOODS!  NEIGHBORHOODS are what this city is about!  They can be everything that it’s meant to be--to have the right lifestyle for generations.  It has been.  But if you ruin neighborhoods, you ruin this city.

Like so many times before, she prevailed!  She will be missed.

Joe Rochelle

LCIA board member and legislative director to Cm. Clarkson, 2010-2014

Retired Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson in the Council Chambers in 2022, along with representatives of neighborhood associations from across the City, including members of the LCIA's Board and Zoning Committee.