Editorial: Martinez voters should take politics out of city clerk job

Martinez is among a small minority of California municipalities where voters still elect the city clerk.

It makes little sense. The job is largely ceremonial, administering oaths of office and signing official city documents. The assistant city clerk, who reports to the city manager, does the heavy lifting.

Yet the city continues to pay about $30,000 a year for the city clerk’s salary and benefits, most of which is for health insurance. And the city spends about $40,000 every four years for the city clerk election.

It’s time to end this silliness. Martinez voters should approve Measure A, which would eliminate the elected city clerk job. The position would instead be appointed by the city manager and the duties of the job would be combined with those of the assistant city clerk.

It’s a change that even the elected city clerk, Gary Hernandez, whose term ends after this year, supports. It’s a recognition of reality.

Currently, Assistant City Clerk Kat Galileo already performs the daily duties of the office with the help of a part-time clerk. Those duties include managing key city records; preparing meeting agendas, resolutions, ordinances and minutes; overseeing election law compliance for city officials; and responding to inquiries and records requests from the public.

Currently, the Martinez city clerk need only be 18 years old and live in the city. The only accountability is once every four years at election time. But the post is so obscure to most voters that they’re ill-equipped to pass judgment.

In contrast, with an appointed city clerk, the city manager could hire the most-qualified person. And hold that person accountable for job performance on an ongoing basis. The job is now an appointed one in more than 80% of California cities as a growing number abandon elections for city clerk.

If Martinez voters want to see why that ongoing accountability is so important and what could go wrong without it, they should look next door to the city of Pleasant Hill.

Residents there discovered in 2014 that their clerk, Kim Lehmkuhl, who was responsible for keeping minutes, had not been doing so for over a year and instead spent her time sending out tweets about City Council meetings and whatever other political issues interested her.

Because Lehmkuhl was elected, there was no way to fire her without conducting an expensive and slow recall campaign. Thankfully, she eventually resigned to take a job out of town, and residents later that year voted to make the post an appointed one.

If Martinez voters approve Measure A, City Manager Michael Chandler plans to appoint Galileo, the assistant city clerk, as city clerk. She would perform the limited duties currently carried out by the elected city clerk plus all the tasks she currently does.

Measure A is a logical and much-needed consolidation that ensures long-term professionalism and accountability in the city clerk’s office while depoliticizing the post. Voters should approve it.