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Councilor, city at odds on recorder position |
By Laurent
Bonczijk, Newberg Graphic reporter
E-mail Laurent at lbonczijk@eaglenewspapers.com |
Norma Alley has been the
subject of much attention at recent budget committee meetings of the
city of Newberg.
Not that the 28-year-old deputy city recorder wants the attention.
The attention came when she was promoted to city recorder with
passage of the 2007-2008 budget.
According to Elizabeth Comfort, the city’s finance director,
Alley’s annual compensation will go from $35,880 to $48,660, with
her benefits package remaining the same.
City Manager James Bennett, who until Monday held the title of city
recorder, said that Alley was already performing all of the
functions of a city recorder but without the title or the ability to
sign official documents.
In his experience as a city manager Bennett said that a city the
size of Newberg needs a person solely responsible as city recorder.
Alley is responsible for ensuring that the city complies with state
regulations dealing with the storage of public documents as well as
public access to those documents.
Councilor Roger Currier has brought Alley’s advancement to bear
during budget committee meetings. He says he raised the issue “no
less than six to eight times,” but nobody else picked up on it
during discussion.
“I just felt that $11,000 could be better used in our system,” he
said, adding that in tough economic times the committee was forced
to pinch pennies to balance the budget. “I felt that the city
manager should keep the title with the deputy doing the job.”
Alley, who holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from George Fox
University, said it is “definitely not a position people graduate
from high school and university and say ‘I wanna be a recorder.’”
She started working for the city as a part-time office assistant
and said the opportunity to be trained as a city recorder came up
and she was interested. The Tillamook native said that in January
she became one of 50 certified municipal clerks in the state of
Oregon after two years of training. She is now pursuing a Master
Municipal Clerk certification, which takes 7 to 15 years to obtain.
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Published
July 4, 2007, Newberg Graphic
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