Amador County – Sutter Creek appointed Natalie Doyle as interim city clerk on Monday, and will seek a new, permanent clerk, and weigh its options in doing so.

Staff will see if applicants come forward, after advertising the vacancy, or it could make code changes. City Attorney Derek Cole said not many cities in California have elected city clerks any more, and the council could change city code to make it an appointed position.

Councilwoman Linda Rianda said changing from having an elected to an appointed city clerk would have to be sent to voters to decide. Cole said the council must pass a resolution and have an election, with the next chance for that being June 2012.

Past City Clerk Judy Allen (who chose not to seek reelection) said the position is much more complicated than the council may realize, and the city clerk has duties from finance to “almost every department in the city.” She said by not having a full time city clerk, the city is having a lot of things “fall through the cracks.”

Mayor Gary Wooten asked if it could be handled by a half-time city clerk, and Allen did not think so. She said, as an example of a city clerk duty, that “all ordinances need to be codified, and they haven’t been done in the 12 years I’ve been here.”

Allen said going to city clerk conventions made her aware of the depth of duties. She said the council needs to think about what the city clerk does, and maybe they need to “rewrite this law or get rid of it, whatever it takes.”

Councilman Tim Murphy moved to reevaluate the position, “before we go out and look for a more permanent” action. He asked City Manager Sean Rabe to get a proposed set of revised duties for the clerk.

Councilwoman Sandy Anderson asked staff to get the resolution prepared, so they can be sure to have it on the ballot if they decide to seek a change.

Mimi Arata said “it is kind of embarrassing to have our agenda put out by Lorraine Davis,” and said it should be a city task.

Wooten asked when the city’s website was going to be back online, and if it could post the city council agenda and packets. Rabe said the city website is now operating again, and he is working with the site developer to post the agenda packet to a separate site for download. Rabe said: “We need to know who wants access to that website.”

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.