The Hidden Power of City Clerks

The Most Important Person You’ve Never Voted For

Walk into any city hall across Southern California—Fontana, Pomona, Temecula, San Bernardino—and you’ll likely see the mayor’s name on the wall, the council agendas stacked at the front desk, and the city manager’s office behind a badge-coded door.

But behind all of it, usually seated quietly and surrounded by binders, is a person who rarely seeks the spotlight yet touches nearly every corner of local power: the city clerk.

They don’t write laws. They don’t vote on budgets. But without them, nothing moves. Ordinances don’t get published. Meetings don’t happen. Ballots don’t get certified. Records don’t get kept.

In a state obsessed with sunshine laws, procedural transparency, and tight election cycles, the municipal clerk is both gatekeeper and guardian—operating in the narrow space between bureaucracy and democracy.

And still, most people don’t even know their name.

Not Just Minutes and Memos

For many, the phrase “city clerk” brings to mind the image of a note-taker. Someone who sits quietly, typing up council meeting summaries and filing PDFs.

That image is not wrong—but it’s deeply incomplete.

Clerks in California have a legally mandated role in:

• Running and certifying local elections
• Publishing and archiving every city ordinance
• Maintaining the official city seal
• Administering public records requests under the California Public Records Act (CPRA)
• Swearing in elected officials
• Ensuring city business complies with the Brown Act (California’s open meeting law)

“The city council can’t vote on anything if the agenda wasn’t properly posted 72 hours in advance—and that’s on the clerk,” says a longtime municipal consultant based in San Diego County. “They’re the first line of legal defense for a city’s actions.”

In smaller cities, the clerk might also serve double-duty as the public information officer, election administrator, or risk manager. In mid-sized and larger cities like Riverside, Pasadena, or Oxnard, the clerk may oversee entire departments and supervise teams that handle elections, archives, and council logistics.

In other words: city clerks keep the lights on—and the laws legal.

A Quiet Political Position

Some clerks are elected. Some are appointed. Some are “at-will” employees serving at the pleasure of the city manager. Others report directly to the city council.

Each structure has its own tensions.

In cities like Riverside, the elected clerk is an independent officer, theoretically insulated from city hall politics. But in places like Upland, the clerk is appointed by the city manager, raising questions about neutrality when handling sensitive documents or requests.

“It’s a strange position,” says a former city attorney in the Inland Empire. “They’re neutral by design but always in the orbit of power. If someone files a CPRA request on a controversial city deal, guess who has to process it? The clerk.”

In some cities, that quiet responsibility has turned into conflict.

In 2023, the city clerk of Hemet resigned after repeated pressure from city hall officials to delay the release of public records tied to a land use dispute. She cited “increased political interference” and “retaliatory behavior” in her resignation letter—an echo of concerns raised in other small municipalities where transparency duties collide with power interests.

The Keepers of Memory

Beyond politics, clerks are also the memory of a city.

They hold the history—the dusty ordinances passed in the 1950s, the minutes from a council vote on a freeway that never got built, the original charter documents typed on onion-skin paper. They make sure today’s policies have legal standing because yesterday’s were properly filed.

“People think it’s just paperwork,” said one retired clerk from a San Bernardino County city. “But every decision has to live somewhere. Every vote has to be tracked. Cities forget what they did five years ago—but we don’t.”

They are, in many ways, the institutional backbone of cities that otherwise change faces every election cycle.

A Profession Under Pressure

Despite their central role, clerks are often underpaid, overworked, and under-recognized. The League of California Cities has repeatedly highlighted the “clerical pipeline problem”—a growing shortage of trained clerks as senior staff retire and cities struggle to fill the roles.

The position requires a high degree of legal literacy, discretion, and endurance—but is rarely compensated as well as a leadership post. In cities where budget cuts are common, clerk departments are often among the first to be downsized.

In the digital age, clerks are being asked to digitize decades of records, manage ever-increasing public records requests, and post high volumes of material to city websites—often with limited technical support.

The stakes are high. A missed deadline, an improperly filed notice, or a procedural error can nullify an entire city ordinance—or open up lawsuits.

The Bottom Line

In an era of declining civic trust and rising local tension, city clerks are the invisible infrastructure of democracy.

They don’t make headlines. They don’t campaign for your vote. But they make the mechanics of government work—and they do it in the background, with precision and care.

The next time you see an agenda posted on a city website or request a public record and get a response in three days, know this: a clerk made that happen.

And chances are, they did it without fanfare.