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Date: 9/7/2021
NORTHAMPTON – During the Northampton City Council’s Sept. 2 meeting, the council hosted a public hearing to discuss making the city clerk an appointed position rather than an elected position.
To start the hearing, Council President Gina-Louise Sciarra read the hearing notice and said the change was to bring the city clerk position in line with the changes to the city’s charter that were recently ratified by the state’s legislature.
Councilor At-Large Bill Dwight said one of the problems with making the city clerk an elected position is that they preside over their own elections.
“We are one of the outliers in the state of Massachusetts as far as having a professional City Clerk’s Office as opposed to an elected one. That is not to say the people who have served as city clerks were not professional, but they were elected,” he said. “There is an intrinsic problem with that because the job security is not great, which impedes the ability to plan out long term. It puts the city clerk in an awful position to preside over its own election.”
By having the clerk be an elected position Dwight added that the position is too important to leave up to a vote.
"It means you do not necessarily need to be qualified to become the city clerk and there have been candidates who were not qualified, and this position is way too important to give over to a popularity contest,” he said.
Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz jumped into the call to say prior to the change, Northampton was one of five cities that still had an elected city clerk in Massachusetts.
“I think at last count of the almost 50 cities in Massachusetts, now with Northampton switching to appointed, I think there are now only four cities left that have an elected city clerk, so we were clearly in the minority,” he said.
He added that it makes sense that the clerk be appointed because they play a direct role in enforcing the law in the city when it comes to elections.
“For all intents and purposes, they have functioned like a department head, but I do think the professionalism of the office and there is a distinction between a policy maker like the council or the School Committee and somebody who carries out the law, the election, the storage of vital records, public records, and open meeting laws. That is all prescribed by the charter or state laws,” he said.
Narkewicz added that one of the disadvantages of the city clerk position compared to other department heads is that it does not accrue benefits like sick or vacation time because it is an elected position.
“The city clerk functions like a department head but because they are elected, they get a fixed salary that is set by ordinance, so they do not get regular cost of living adjustments like their peers, and they do not accrue vacation or sick time. That is one of the disadvantages for someone who functions like a department head,” he said.
After closing the public hearing, the council unanimously approved the motion to make the city clerk an appointed position as opposed to an elected one. With the change, Narkewicz said he is planning to bring an order forward at the council’s next meeting to reappoint current city clerk Pamela Powers.
During the meeting, the council also made two reappointments and three appointments to five city commissions and approved the second reading of the warrant for the preliminary election on Sept. 28.
The Northampton City Council next meets on Sept. 22.