[Mpls] Park Board & City Clerk Functions

[Carol Becker]

Scott  Vreeland  wrote:

> As a citizen I would like to  restore two cuts made to last year's budget:
> money for a part time archivist  to keep good historical records ...

I often find that in government, the things that work well never get any 
attention or focus.

What I would recommend to Scott and to others on the Park Board that instead 
of hiring some part time archivist, that they contract with the City Clerk 
to provide a committee clerk to the Park Board.  This person could handle 
all official announcements and schedules, take official meeting notes, 
maintain the record of all official actions, and provide indexing and 
document management.  Minneapolis has City Clerk's Office who does a bang-up 
job of these functions and it would be silly and costly to create a parallel 
system.

Why do I say this?  One time I went to the Clerk looking for the official 
action where the County designated the City as the Official Surveyor for the 
City of Minneapolis.  Two hours later, the clerk comes back with a copy of a 
resolution from the 1870's which showed the official action of the City 
Council accepting this responsibility.  I have to say, it was pretty cool, 
in this wonderful handwritten script writing with this funky seal on it.

Now why care?  Because this agreement back from over 130 years ago is still 
law.  It still governs the relationship between the City and the County.  If 
I could not find it, I would not know what law the City Council had made 
back 130 years ago. And it would be as if that agreement never existed and 
instead we would have been left with a mess.  A good clerk function 
maintains these records and can find them again, even after 130 years. 
Sounds simple but it isn't.

What has always scared me about the Park Board not having an adequate 
clerking function is that there is no record of its actions.  If a Board 
took an action 20 years ago and that action is still law, you wouldn't know 
about it.  It would be as if that law never was made.  A good clerk function 
would fix this.

A good clerk function knows data laws so all records are kept legally and is 
clear what is official and what is not.  A good clerk function knows Open 
Meeting Laws.  I have been at meetings where this law was violated and the 
clerk simply walked out of the room and ended the meeting instead of being 
complicit.  A good clerk function also acts as a librarian, knowing about 
how to index actions to they can found again.  A good clerk function 
provides data backups so if there were to be a catastrophe, the information 
about legal decisions continues on. (Think New Orleans)  A good clerk 
function provides all this information promptly to all citizens.  And the 
reason I keep using the word "function" is that a good clerk function is 
actually a system of data management rather than just a person taking some 
notes at a meeting. It goes way beyond a single individual.

In short, there is a lot more to it than being an archivist and it would be 
much better for the Park Board to contract with the City and its 
professional clerks than to try and recreate this function with a part time 
staff person.

Carol Becker
Longfellow
Future Member, Board of Estimate and Taxation
Government Geek