Municipal clerks are the unsung heroes

Statue of City Clerk Linda Ruehle, Issaquah WA

May is the month when we celebrate municipal clerks, and Jurassic Parliament is delighted to join in offering kudos to these unsung heroes of our society. When you look under the hood of local government, you find clerks everywhere. They are the dedicated, quiet, consistent, reliable, and hard-working “go to” people who keep our country ticking along.

If we didn’t have clerks posting notices, keeping the minutes of local government meetings, pulling out public records on request, staffing committees, answering the phone, greeting visitors and more, our local governments would grind to a screeching halt.

The list goes on and on—clerks are responsible for dozens of tasks, and yet they are almost invisible. People just don’t think about the work that it takes to staff and serve the thousands of local governments in this country.

Jurassic Parliament is proud to be presenting our training workshop at the Northwest Clerks Institute in Tacoma, Washington next month, as we have since 2005. Clerks are critical to our understanding of local government issues.

And sometimes, just sometimes, municipal clerks do get the recognition they deserve. This statue is a tribute to Linda Ruehle, who served as City Clerk in Issaquah, Washington for 27 years. Reader, if you pass by, leave a flower on her book to acknowledge the work of the municipal clerk, without whom democracy would perish.