HomeMy WebLinkAbout78-114 RESOLUTION NO. 78-114
A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL
OF THE CITY OF SANTA ANA
PROCLAIMING SEPTEMBER 15, 1978 AS
"CLERK OF THE COUNCIL DAY"
WHEREAS,
WHEREAS,
WHEREAS,
WHEREAS,
WHEREAS,
WHEREAS,
WHEREAS,
WHEREAS,
the municipal clerk, along with the tax collector,
is the oldest of public servants; the office can
be traced to biblical times and even before; and
St. Paul and his followers during his missionary
work in Persia owed their safety to the action of
a town clerk; as related in Acts XIX, 23-25, the
artisans of Ephesus who made the idols of the time
feared the effect of Paul's missionary work on
their trade; they incited a mob to seize two of
Paul's followers; the town clerk, however, spoke
out against this action and insisted that charges
laid against these men had to be settled in the
proper manner and before the proper authorities,
there was no justification for riotous conduct, and
with that he dispersed the crowd; and
ancient Greece had a city secretary who read of-
ficial documents publicly; at the opening of a
meeting, one of his duties was to read a curse
upon anyone who should seek to deceive the people;
and
the early keepers of the archives were often called
remembrancers, and before writing came into use,
their memory was the public record; and
the title as we know it is derived from the Middle
Ages; a "Clerk? was any member of a religious order,
a "cleric" or ,'clergyman"; and since, for all prac-
tical purposes, the scholarship of the Middle Ages
was limited to the clergy, the name "clerk" came to
be synonymous with "scholar"; and
the Office of Clerk can be traced back to the year
1272 A.D. in the History of the Corporation of Old
London; in the 1500's in England there was not only
the "Towne Clarcke" but also the Clerc Comtroller
of the King's Honorable Household"; in 1603, there
was a "Clarke General of the Armie"; King Henry the
Eighth had a Clarke of the Spicery" and King Charles
had his "Clerk of the Robes"; and
when the early colonists came to America, they set
up forms of local government to which they had been
accustomed, and the office of clerk was one of the
first established; the colony at Plymouth appointed
a person to act as recorder; and
over the 200 years since the birthday of the United
States of America, municipal clerks have become the
hub of government, the direct link between the in-
habitants of their towns and their government; the
clerk is the historian of the community, for the en-
tire recorded history of the town and its people is
in the care of the clerk; and
WHEREAS,
the eminent political scientist, Professor
William Bennett Munro, writing in one of the
first textbooks on municipal administration,
stated:
"No other office in municipal service
has so many contacts. It serves the
mayor, the city council, the city mana-
ger . . and all administrative depart-
ments ~ithout exception. All of them
call upon it, almost daily, for some
service or information. Its work
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."
NOW THEREFORE, THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SANTA ANA does
hereby proclaim September 15, 1978 as
"CLERK OF THE COUNCIL DAY'l
in honor of the Office of the Clerk of the Council of the City
of Santa Ana, and do hereby commend FLORENCE I. MALONE for her
graceful acceptance of the dignity and responsibility of her
office, for performing its myriad duties with pleasant humor,
painstaking care, and a full understanding of their significance
in relation to the current affairs and the history of our City,
and for her unfailing loyalty and devotion to the City of Santa
Ana.
ADOPTED this 5th day of September, 1978, by the following vote:
AYES:
NOES:
ABSENT:
COUNCILMEN: Garthe, Brandt, Bricken, Ortiz,
Yamamoto~ Evans~ Ward
COUNCILMEN: None
MAYOR
ATTEST:
APPROVED AS TO FORM:
KEITH L. GOW, CITY ATTORNEY