From: Jacob Patterson
To: City Clerk
Subject: Public Comment -- 10/10/23 CC Mtg., Item No. 9C, City Clerk Date: Tuesday, October 10, 2023 3:00:15 PM
City Council,
I encourage you to appoint a Council ad hoc committee to manage the City Clerk recruitment process (in conjunction with appropriate staff, which doesn't include Peggy or another Acting or Interim City Manager, IMO). Prior to her unfortunate passing, I understand that Cristal and Diana have been handling June's responsibilities in her absence but I don't think either of them has the training, knowledge, and background to perform the city clerk's duties as permanent replacements. To illustrate, PRA requests have not been handled correctly and meetings have not been properly noticed. I don;t think that is either of their faults, they have been performing admirably in a difficult situation. However, an experienced municipal clerk likely would have caught those issues as June often did during her tenure. Furthermore, please ensure that you manage this process correctly because the voters, through an approved ballot initiative, assigned the power to appoint our city clerk to the City Council and only to the City Council. I continue to be concerned that we don't even have an appropriately appointed Acting City Clerk because the Council took no action to ratify the administrative decision to have Cristal serve in that capacity.
Regards,
--Jacob