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The municipal clerk, along with the tax collector, is the oldest public servant. The office can be traced back to biblical times and even before.
Ancient Greece had a city secretary who read official documents publicly. At the opening of a meeting, one of his duties was to read a curse upon anyone who should seek to deceive the people.
The early keepers of the archives where often called remembrances, and before writing came into use, their memory was the public record.
When the early colonists came to America, they set up forms of local government to which they had been accustomed, and the office of clerk was one of the first established. The colony at Plymouth appointed a person to act as a recorder.
Over the years, municipal clerks have become the hub of government, the direct link between the inhabitants of their towns and their government. The clerk is the historian of the community, for the entire recorded history of the town and its people in the clerk's care.
The eminent political scientist, Professor William Bennett Munro, writing in one of the first textbooks on municipal administration, stated:
"No other office in municipal service has so many contacts. It serves the mayor, the city council, the city manager (when there is one), and all administrative departments without exception. All of them call upon it almost daily, for some service or information. Its work is not spectacular, but it demands versatility, alertness, accuracy, and no end of patience. The public does not realize how many loose ends of city administration this office pulls together."
Those words, written 40 years ago, are even more appropriate today.
An excerpt from the
Washington Municipal Clerk Handbook, March 1995
