One-on-one with: Town Clerk John Hanright
Published on September 5th, 2007
STONEHAM, MA -What's going on in the Town Clerks Office right now?
JH: Right now in the year 2007 there are several issues. First of all being able to run the Town Clerks' office with efficiency and you really need the staff to complete that process. Right now I have several part-time workers, I have a great staff with the financial hardship within the town and not knowing what's going to happen I hope that we're going to be able to keep the staffing.
As you know the town clerk is mandated in every city and town by the state constitution and we are responsible for all record-keeping, the town seal and all town records, and all vital record and in our case all clerks are also required to keep records of all town elections, minutes at town meetings, reporting to the attorney general's office, secretary of State's Office, Department of Revenue and so forth.
I made a decision back in 2000 when the hospital closed and we were going to lose a ton of revenue that I would go out and look into getting passport service here in the town. Little did I know it was going to take off in the town the way it has. It has grown steadily every year and with the new laws partially in January 2007 and the rest in January 2008 we have almost duplicated in 3 _ months the revenue that we did in all of 2006.
What was that?
JH: That was $43,000 and we're already up to about $31,000 and we're only a 1/3 of the way in the year.
What are the law changes that took place that made passports more in demand?
JH: Right now if you take a boat or a car you can get into Canada. If you fly into the United States then you have to have a passport, otherwise you're not going to get in. This has generated millions and millions of new passports, and it currently takes about 10 weeks to get into the United States.
Who knows how strong they are going to make these laws as they go forward, but there's a 10-week turnaround and what used to get done in two weeks and if you expedite them it is now taking three or four weeks.
The State Department has just hired all kinds of people to get rid of this backup they've created by not hiring people and to start getting the passports out to people. We tell people what used to 10 weeks was actually six weeks when people would get them, and that's not even true anymore.
In fact one of the processing places in South Carolina, they say they're going to be 12 weeks on a return. Right now that's a huge service and we've also done the vital records service which has always been big in town.
Vital records always will be in issue in Stoneham because we had the hospital here for over 100 years and those records stay within the town clerk in Stoneham. All births, deaths and marriages and you've got the dog license thing.
Ever Stoneham resident that has a dog is supposed to have a license, and it's Mass General Law and Stoneham bylaw that they continue to do that. We're working to do that right now to get a significant raise on the fines for people that aren't getting their dog licenses.
Right now we're $10 and $15 with a $5 late fee if they're not licensed by April 1, where a lot of other towns you have 30 days to license the dog and it' s a $50 late fee after that date and they will take you to court and you'll have to pay court fees which will run it to about $150 to license a dog when it's so simple.
So are you thinking of going up with the license fee, or just going up with the late fees on the dog licenses?
JH: Just the late fees. We have the lowest number of licensed dogs in the entire area. Winchester, Woburn, Reading, Melrose, North Reading, Lynnfield, Wakefield...they all have twice as many dogs licensed as the town of Stoneham does. I think it's an enforcement issue and people know that.
There's got to be a way to deputized as a dog officer to be in charge of all of the woof-woofs in Stoneham. I don't have the figures in front of me, but it's something that should be looked at in town. Why penalize the people that are going out and getting the licenses, and that's what you're doing...because that's not fair.
We want to be a community, and you know everybody in a community does the same thing. We all have a responsibility to go out and do the right thing.
We have business certificates. There's always a load of business certificates to do in this office whether it's a home office or a business office. Those all have to registered in the Town Clerk's Office.
Elections are a process where a lot of people go to the polls and people say 'OK Election Day, people must have started setting this up at about 6 a.m.' For a Gubernatorial or Presidential Election, the total process takes about a year-and-a-half for that election. Starting off with people taking out election papers, going to get the signatures for their papers and then they hand those in and every single one of those signatures has to be certified.
Then they need to bring them to the Secretary of State's Office to be recertified and put on a ballot. If they don't meet the required numbers then they don't get on the ballot.
There are different kinds of petitions and nomination papers that go through that whole year-and-a-half, then you go through your state elections always have a primary elections then you have your general election.
We're very fortunate in Stoneham that all of our voting takes places in one place and all seven precincts are here. We've run 12,000 people at two Presidential Elections held in this town.
What I did when I took over this position is I opened the three doors at Town Hall. We used to only have the middle door open and people would be waiting in line at 8 p.m. and now we have no lines at 8 p.m. and the only people waiting at that point are people that are reading the different questions on the ballot and so forth.
Of all three, we've only had two people in here at 8 p.m. that were still reading questions.
Was there ever anything discussed about having the voting in different locations?
JH: When I ran for the position of town Clerk in 1998 that was discussed and I asked that I could look into it. After I did that, it was a few months in my first term here and I sat in my car on a rainy day and said 'why do we have these lines going almost to the fire station?' And I said to myself, 'ah it's because we're not using all three doors.' So what we did is break up the precincts into the different doors, and now the person at the end of the line might be going to Precinct 7 and maybe nobody else in line is going to Precinct 7. That really process and the machines we use now have also really sped things up.
What originally attracted you to the Town Clerk's position?
JH: I was elected to eight terms as a Town Assessor (24 years) in Stoneham, and I knew there was a town Clerk position that was going to open up. At the time I was working for a company based out of Philadelphia and I wasn't very happy with my job, so I said I would put my hat in the ring. There were three of us that ran for the position and I was the lucky one that came out victorious.
I liked doing this type of work: public service or service-oriented work. I love helping people and I thought this would be a good opportunity to work back in Stoneham and help the people that I admire most and think of most. I'm a real Townie and I think that's important because when people come in from out of town you want to greet them with open arms and let them know they are welcome here and that's what you do. Obviously everything that I have tried to do hasn't come forth, but obviously it's a money issue. I still think there should be an educational tool of some sort to let people know how their town government works. In the last 20 years we've had a large influx of city people that have moved in Stoneham, and there's nothing wrong with city people don't get me wrong. But a city form of government works very differently from a town form of government, and in Stoneham we have a town Administrator, Selectmen and Open town Meeting form of government. I feel very strongly that Open Town Meeting - it's antiquated maybe - but I feel that if anyone can go to Open Town Meeting and can get anything they want to get off their chest when they go to Open Town Meeting and do it. You might not win them all but you had something to say. If you go to city form of government then you have a Mayor and Council-man or Alderman and you can kiss all your power away.
You've got a little Table Top Pie that you used to get at the store rather than the big pie you'd get at Town Meeting. We have to educate people. When you don't spend a penny then you're not going to get anything back. Look at the Globe. They didn't make any money on the news for years. Look at the Globe that you pay $2.50 for on Sundays and you see all the ads that people want you to come visit their store or for a job or something. Well why can't we do that as a municipality and a town and teach our people - the people that are paying the bills for the town - what we do and how we do it. If they want a site plan or to start a business or they want to build an addition on their house, we should be out there telling them how to do it.
You could do on the web site and I also did a resource book back in 2000 for just that purpose and people still have those books and use them. It cost the town zero to do that because all of the advertising that local businesses invested, and it had all kinds of information in it.
How has town government and Town Meeting changed during your years in Stoneham?
JH: I think the one big thing that I see that's different is the level of civility and community that people shared even when they disagreed at Town Meeting. I think things are a little more contentious and a little more hostile these days when people are on different sides of an argument, where it was very different when I was a kid.
I remember you'd see two people arguing and fighting over an issue at a Town Meeting and then you'd see them laughing about it the next day at O'Grady's over coffee. People didn't take things as personally back then and everything was left at the Town Meeting doors in those days.
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