It’s been 17 years since Donette Richter joined the City of Weyburn crew as City Clerk and now she is looking to take a step back and enjoy retirement.
“Well, I became City Clerk in 2006,” Richter said. “I worked for the city for several years prior to that, but in 2006 is when I was appointed city clerk.”
Over 17 years, Richter has seen a lot and she noted it was difficult to pick one thing as a highlight.
“There's just been a lot of interesting things happen,” she said. “Elections are always an exciting thing. I've done five regular elections and two by-elections and, of course, by-elections often catch you off guard so they're a little more challenging. But I would say probably the busiest, toughest election might have been 2020 because we were in the middle of COVID. That just brought a lot of different scenarios into play. We suddenly had to figure out how were people going to be able to vote that did not feel safe coming out to the polls, so then that created a problem all across the province. Obviously, all the municipalities were dealing with that. So we had to implement an electronic way for people to vote. So we managed to overcome that, had to pass the bylaws, had to go to Council a few times to get that figured out. The council, of course, was very cooperative. We had to get some, you know, permissions from the province because the city is governed by the province. We have to follow the local Government Election Act, which is set up by the province. So we had to get their authorization in order to do these things as well as even holding Council meetings on Zoom. That was a new thing to do. But then as soon as COVID kind of relaxed, things went back to normal, we started meeting again, and we updated our Council procedures bylaw to allow for Zoom meetings, if that were ever to become a thing again. Maybe there's an emergency, a storm, or something that keeps the council from coming together when they have to have a. So now we have that in our bylaw. So in the future, we won't have to worry about it. It'll just be there and there will be a process.”
She added that a huge part of her job is facing the unexpected and coming up with ways to not only solve those problems but also make things even better.
“I'm kind of the liaison between the public and Council, and so I don't know what people are going to come to me with, I mean, we've had all kinds of interesting things,” she said. “We've talked about backyard chickens. That's not something I thought I would ever talk about. We ended up allowing people to have bees in their backyard. When that started, I wasn't so sure I wanted it, but by the time we passed that Bill, I was OK with it because I became educated, learned how the process works, understood how beekeeping bees aren't going to come and attack me, you know, from next door. So I became more understanding of that process. So yeah, a lot of you just never know what you're going to get from day-to-day and you might have your day planned but guess what, you're dealing with 10,000 people. So things change and things are fairly liquid in the city clerk job for sure.”
She also noted that being a City Clerk has changed her perspective as a resident as well.
“Oh, hugely affected it. I have a huge understanding of the processes in place. Sometimes people will come to me and say well, why don't you guys just chat. Unfortunately, there are a lot of rules that we have to follow and people don't understand. I didn't either. And it's, it's funny my friends didn't understand it, and all of a sudden I get talking about, well, you know, there's this thing called the Cities Act that the province says that we have to follow their rules. We don't get to just make them ourselves. Some we do. We're allowed to make bylaws, of course, but we always have to make sure that we don't contravene any provincial legislation and the Cities Act is just one of many. It's a learning process for sure. So I understand that and it's hard to understand if you don't work in it every day. I probably would have the same criticism of provincial or federal governments and go, why don't they just do that? Because I don't understand their processes.”
Richter added that while she needed to be fluid in her day-to-day, things changed every time new council members and mayors were brought in.
“When you have an election, of course, there's going to be change,” she said. “I've had three mayors, and they've all been very individual and very different in their own ways and had different priorities for the community. All good. Sometimes the changes were harder than other times, but I think if you just work with them, they too learn that there are processes and unfortunately sometimes they come in not realizing that process, and sometimes the thing that they want to change the most, they can't because it may be out of our authority.”
When looking back on 17 years as City Clerk, she noted that there were a few things she was proud of, although she realized the public may not see it the same way she does.
“When I first became city clerk, I did go from all papers,” she said. “So literally the former city clerk used to print every single piece of paper and put it in a binder for council for every single meeting, as well as the media, and we would have a binder, I would have about 10 binders sitting on my desk and those council members that didn't pick them up, I would have to deliver them to their houses. So eventually we went to emailing them out, but sometimes the emails were too big if there was a lot of information. Then we moved to a software, a meeting management software. So I had to implement a new meeting management software and now the Council gets all of their Council packages electronically. They just log into their software, I let them know when it's there, and they can look at all of their information and it's all very secure, very safe. We've had it tested, and many cities and municipalities use that software and it's just made it so much more convenient and easy, everybody gets their information at the same time and if there is any little addition or change, then we can change it much easier than having to print off new paper and delivering it.”
Of course, she couldn’t help but recollect another former system.
“You know other things that have changed? I know when I started in 1989, I mean we were printing water bills with carbon paper on an old printer, and then you'd have to tear them apart. So things have changed and now we e-mail a lot of them out to people. So I mean, things have really, really come full circle on a lot of processes, a lot of things are far less labour intensive and maybe more work on the computer end in the office, but not as much physically."
Although Richter is leaving, there are a few things she still hopes to see after she has left.
“I know one thing that we always talked about was getting an actual proper records management program,” she said. “I guess in the long term our records management program would actually be more efficient because we would serve the public more efficiently. So I really hope that they do get a good records management system. That's going to help a lot of processes, a lot of searching, and just will be far more efficient and therefore improve customer service.”
Richter also noted that while there are some tricky parts of her job, there is a lot about it she will miss.
“Working with the public, of course,” she said. “It's a double-edged sword, but I enjoy meeting people, meeting new people, and being able to help them solve their solve their issues if I can, or at least lead them in the right direction to help them out, get a solution to their problems, and of course the people that I work with, I'm going to truly miss working with them.”
She added that there were many people to thank for the past 17 years
"Well, I'm very thankful to Ron Abel, he was the man that hired me in 1989 for a three-month temporary position in the finance department, and since then, you know, they couldn't get rid of me.,” she laughed. “And in 2006, city manager of the day Bob Smith appointed me as a city clerk and gave me an opportunity that I very much appreciate. So I'm very grateful to him and he mentored me a lot and really helped me along the way to understand what a city clerk does, and he was an excellent mentor and manager. And just all of the people that work here today and over the years. Thanks to my family, of course, for putting up with me.”
Donette Richter's last day as City clerk will be December 22nd.
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