What do you consider the role of the city clerk?
The most important role of the clerk is the role of city Election
Official. This role is the key reason this is an elected, and not
appointed, position. As the Election Official, the clerk enforces the
... Election Code, conducts municipal elections every two years,
prints and mails the ballots, and generally oversees the election
process from setting up the polling place to counting the final
tally. Protecting the right to vote and counting each vote is the
highest priority of the Election Official and the City Clerk.
The clerk is the division head of the Office of the City Clerk and
the liaison between other city department heads and the City Council.
This duty includes advertising and preparing the Council's agenda;
gathering and assembling staff reports for Council meetings; making
agendas and staff reports available for public access. The clerk
records the minutes of council meetings and the voting record,
processing and recording the city's official actions.
The clerk is the caretaker of public records, and must have an
understanding of the public information act, which addresses public
access to information and protection of privileged information.
Record keeping and record retrieval are key services provided by the
office of the clerk.
What experience do you have overseeing large budgets, organizing
important records and running elections?
As division chief for the Mountains Recreation and Conservation
Authority, I yearly oversee five or more projects with individual
budgets up to $5 million. These taxpayer-funded projects require
either state of California Department of Finance, or granting agency
review and approval. Furthermore, federal and state grant
requirements include extensive record keeping and reporting.
The division that I run keeps accurate records of all agency
building activities to be readily accessible for federal, state and
local auditors. For our local agency, record keeping is particularly
critical for processing invoices and closing out projects.
My experience in running elections varies from conducting
organizational elections for my professional society to serving as a
poll worker for the presidential race in 2004. My duties ranged from
gathering candidate information for ballots to counting and verifying
the final vote.
How can technology be used to improve the services offered by the
city clerk's office?
Providing official documents, permits and forms on the Web allows
