City Clerks carry out multiple administrative functions, manage council meetings, and serve as municipal record keepers. In the first annual survey of these men and women, which was released in mid-April, some 55% felt that the public was not well engaged with local government in their community – a sad finding. The survey results, based on 507 responses from active city clerks in 48 US states and six Canadian provinces included the following highlights (or lowlights):

• 35% of respondents said they saw “growing hostility from community members who are engaged.”

• 85% cited resident difficult in searching for information on elected officials, with 80% seeing difficulty in public searches for specific topics.

• While 64% livestream or post videos of meetings, prior notification of 

meetings appeared limited with only 20% saying they used social media to promote meetings and just 9% still using paper flyers or signs.

The survey also pointed to barriers to efficiency, including the problem of last-minute changes to agendas, technical issues and difficulties in document management. Among the biggest challenges cited were time management, attending to council member demands, managing historic records and timely publishing materials.

Key takeaways from the survey included the need for more regular feedback from meeting participants, better public access to meeting materials, improved search mechanisms, and improved technology.

The survey was designed in collaboration with the International Institute of Municipal Clerks and published by eScribe, a Canadian cloud-based software company focused on meeting management. (Note that city clerks may have a variety of titles, depending on where they serve.)

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