The City clerk is elected citywide for a four-year term. As well as overseeing all operations of the City Clerk's Office, by Charter, is also a voting member of the City Hall Committee, which oversees all city property management; and the Airport Commission, overseeing Airport operations at the Sikorsky Memorial Airport.
The current City Clerk Fleeta C. Hudson, has earned the distinguished accomplishment of holding office in a citywide elected position for the longest tenure of any other city official presently serving. Originally elected to the Board of Education in 1971 and re-elected for 9 two-year terms, she then ran for City Clerk in 1989.
What is a City Clerk?
The eminent politcal scientist, Professor William Bennett Munro, writing in one of the first textbooks on municipal adminstration (1934) stated:
"No other office in municipal service has so many contacts.
It serves the mayor, the city council, the city manager (when there is one), and all administrative departments without exception.
All of them call upon it, almost daily, for some service or information. Its work is not spectacular, but it demands versatility, alertness, accuracy, and no end of patience.
The public does not realize how many loose ends of city administration this office pulls together."
These words, written over 50 years ago, are even more appropriate today.