Town clerk and assistant take job seriously, but have fun, too

Cara Spilsbury

May 15, 2007 11:04 am

— MIDDLETON | Middleton residents support many teams; the Red Sox, the Patriots, the Masconomet Chieftans. But few teams in town execute their job the way Town Clerk Sarah George and her assistant Kathryn Brochu do.
But their seemless teamwork is a relatively new creation. They didn't meet until 1992, although it seems they have been friends their whole lives.
They have been working together so long that George, 61, and Brochu, 55, tease that they share part of a brain. Their like-mindedness has gotten so predictable that they often arrive at work wearing almost the same outfit, causing their facing desks to seem more like a mirror reflection.
On a recent Friday, the two came to Town Hall wearing crew-neck, fire engine red shirts and colorful cardigan sweaters.
"That's happened twice this week," George joked.
George is a native of Melrose who moved to Middleton more 31 years ago, and Brochu is Middleton born-and-raised.
The two have their fair share of laughs on the job, but take their duty to the town very seriously. They recently had one of their busiest times, when the Town Election was held here on Monday.

Q. How long have you worked here?
George: It's been almost 18 and a half years since I was elected.
Brochu: And she appointed me in December of 1992.

Q. What brought you to this job?
George: There was a vacancy when I first took the job. I knew a little bit about how the office ran because I had been on the Planning Board for about 10 years. At that time, it was very part-time, but I was a stay-at-home mom so 20 hours a week worked for me.

Q. How has the job changed since you started?
George: Well now it's a 34-hour a week job. The town has grown from 4,900 residents to 7,700 residents in that time. And when I started the only computer in the office was an Apple IIE. The state has since computerized all voter registration, so that was a big change.
Brochu: And our space has changed.
George: Several years ago, there were some structural problems in the building, and our office space improved as a by-product.

Q. What duties does the town clerk have?
George: Running elections is the most important and my favorite. But we always keep all of the town's records; meetings, elections, birth, death and marriage records, a little bit of licensing, fishing and hunting, dogs, business certificates.

Q. What's the best part of your job?
George: Aside from the fact that it's three buildings from home? I like the fact that there are so many different aspects of it. You're not doing reports all the time, and your not doing elections all the time.
Brochu: I liked the people. All the people that come in, I get to help. I see and meet and greet almost everyone in town and since I grew up here, I recognize a lot of them.

Q. What's the most challenging part of your job?
Brochu: The elections, for me, are the most challenging. And all the legal stuff, and I don't know how she does it.
George: Definitely the elections, seeing that they go smoothly.
Brochu: And they do. She's great at them.
George: Only because you're great.

Q. What are some of the most unusual things you've seen or heard on the job?
George: Some of the phone calls we get, we've been talking about compiling a list. I guess it's standard procedure when you don't know something, you ask the town clerk. Well, I got a call from a panicked man one day who was trapped in a gas station bathroom and there were a lot of snakes. He couldn't even get out what gas station he was in. There was really nothing I could do about that.
Brochu: A phone call I get all the time, is "what are all the names that Angelica's has been?" It must be a trivia question or something.

Q. So how many names has Angelica's been?
Brochu: At least six or seven.

Q. What other kinds of jobs have you had?
George: I was a full-time mother for 17 years, and before that I worked in publishing. There really is not that much connection between the jobs, but I have always been very interested in elections. I was a member of the League of Women Voters ever since I started working.
Brochu: When I got out of high school, I worked for an interior design company making custom drapes. That really has nothing to do with computers or paperwork or anything I do know. I was also a stay-at-home mom for 18 years, and on the side I helped my husband who owned his own business.

Q. What kind of training did you need to be the town clerk?
George: The only aspect of it that I knew anything about was from my Planning Board experience. But luckily the assistant town clerk from my predecessor, Russ, stayed on. He knew a little bit about it and the rest we learned on our own.

Q. Is there anything about you two that people would be surprised to know?
Brochu: We didn't know each other before I started working here.

Q. So how did you end up appointing Kate as your assistant?
George: She walked in and literally knocked on my door and asked if I needed any help.
Brochu: I think I worked just one election before that. But this job is natural for me. I'm a big blabber mouth!

Staff writer Cara Spilsbury can be reached at 978-946-2230 or via e-mail at cspilsbury@towncrossings.com

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