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Spotlight on the City Clerk's Office

Posted on: June 11, 2019 - 11:47am

As the Board of Aldermen reviews the Fiscal 2020 budget, each department will appear before the Board to discuss their operations. We thought this would be a good time to introduce the different City departments and explain what they do and how they are funded. Today we look at the City Clerk's Office.

If you have only been to one office in City Hall, it’s probably the City Clerk’s office. That’s because the City Clerk is the official record keeper for the City of Melrose and is responsible for many types of city and public records, and a variety of resident services including

  • Management and issuances of birth, death, and marriage certificates
  • Dog licenses
  • Licenses, including business; taxi and livery; restaurant; and gasoline and storage licenses;
  • Official city records of all types;
  • Public records requests;
  • Recording and archiving all city legislative files;
  • Agendas and minutes of the Board of Aldermen;
  • Accepting submissions for Board of Appeals applications, and resident property claims;
  • Providing notary services;
  • Managing Open Meeting Law filings of all public meeting agendas;
  • Oversight of the city website

In addition, the City Clerk’s Office also serves as the default operator for the City Hall phone system. The office has been particularly busy of late, as more people are requesting vital records to fulfill the Real ID requirements for driver’s licenses. In fiscal 2019, they have averaged 680 requests per month for vital records.

The office is continually working on ways to improve their customer service-- they now accept online orders for vital records and credit cards for in-office payments.

The City Clerk’s Office oversees the Elections Office, and works in conjunction with the Clerk of Committees.

The Elections Office, which consists of a full-time Election Administrator and additional part-time staff during election season, is responsible for

  • Overseeing all elections including the hiring and supervision of poll workers; programming of voting machines and printing of ballots; and certifying election results.
  • Maintaining the state database of voter registrations for Melrose residents
  • Sending out, collecting, and recording the annual city census;
  • Receiving and posting campaign finance reports;
  • Overseeing nomination and initiative petitions;
  • Serving as point of contact for the Federal 2020 Census

There will be two elections this calendar year, the preliminary Mayoral election in September and the municipal election in November.

The Clerk of Committees is the liaison between the Board of Aldermen and the Mayor’s Office, other city departments, and the public. Duties include:

  • Serving as the administrative staff person for the Board of Aldermen
  • Creating the agendas and keeping the minutes for the Aldermen’s committees;
  • Overseeing the annual budget hearings;
  • Managing communications with the aldermen;
  • Technical oversight of the city’s legislative management software;
  • Coordination with MMTV for live-streams of aldermanic meetings