Gail Meyers, Novato Political Critic, Recovering from Stroke, Car Crash

Novato’s most prominent and vocal political critic, Gail Meyers, is recovering from a minor stroke that only seemed to make her mad that she can’t watch Novato City Council meetings from her hospital bed.

“We should hit up Comcast on a deal for them,” Meyers said of Pleasant Care Convalescent Hospital in Novato, where she is recuperating. “I can’t believe they don’t have the local cable channels here.”

Former Novato Planning Commissioner Marie Hoch was the first to tell Novato Patch of Meyers' condition. Meyers, who has missed only a handful of city meetings over the past few decades, is known as one of Marin County’s political gadflies. A meeting without three minutes of Meyers during open time almost isn’t an official meeting, some would say. Meyers has made several unsuccessful runs at a council seat, hosts a show on and often has harsh words for council members and city staff.

Meyers suffered what doctors called a mild stroke on Thursday, July 7, while behind the wheel of her car. She was pulling her Lincoln into the office on Seventh Street to pay a visit to the public access TV studio inside the NUSD building when the crash occurred.

“I didn’t black out. That’s what was so weird,” she said.

Meyers said she sideswiped another vehicle along the driver’s side and her car came to a stop in the street. She said the air bag deployment “scared the life out of me” because she immediately smelled gas after the crash. She scrambled to try and get out of the car, cutting her hand in the process, because she was worried the gas might ignite, she said.

“Then they said it was something in the air bag that smelled like gas,” she said.

Meyers said her car was totaled and that she won’t be driving anytime soon. She said doctors are focusing on getting her diabetes and high blood pressure under control. She had problems reading in the days after the crash, but had no other problems … “Nothing more major than there ever was.”

Meyers said she got a kick out of a story she heard from a hospital worker at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Terra Linda, where she was initially taken after the wreck.

“One of the gals said, ‘You came to a council meeting and spoke, and I said ‘Wow, something thinks the same way I do,’” Meyers said. “That made me laugh.”

Meyers said her daughter, Judith, is making regular visits to the convalescent hospital and a few friends have visited her.

“It’s boring as hell,” she said.