Mission Viejo’s Karen Hamman wins "2008 city clerk of the year award"

There are times when city employees deserve recognition for their public service. I am pleased to learn that Karen Hamman, our (Mission Viejo) city clerk, has just been awarded “2008 city clerk of the year” by the City Clerk’s Association of CA at their annual award banquet that was held last Thursday where Karen was given a crystal trophy. Note: There are 478 cities in the state.

Karen began working for the city of Mission Viejo in 1988, the same year of our cityhood. She began as a switchboard operator and 18 months later was promoted to assistant city clerk, eventually taking over the current post in 2003. She and her husband Noah live in Dana Point with their three children Jake, Nathan and Claire.

Following is my letter of recommendation to the selection committee.

“I would like to nominate our City Clerk, Karen Kamman, for consideration as City Clerk of the Year for the following reasons.

While I am sure that there are many candidates worthy of recognition our city clerk has surpassed what I believe to be normal in terms of her duties and responsibilities.
Sadly our city council is a dysfunctional band of five elected officials who bicker all the time. Through all of this public display Karen maintains a cool, calm and professional demeanor while she keeps track of each and every Agenda Item under discussion. Over the past year we have had several contentious Agenda items with larger than normal citizen participation. Many of these residents and other interested parties interact with her as they want to be part of the process. Beyond the city council meetings that process includes her full and prompt cooperation with multiple Public Record Requests and assistance in learning how to access data on our state of the art software which has been expanded to provide more transparency to the public.

And lastly, when she took over as our city clerk at a time when we had a major shakeup in both our city council and city management (with the removal or departure of both the former city manager, an assistant city manager and prior city clerk), Karen stepped up and demonstrated her fiscal restraint by not replacing one staff member in her department. To date, while the number of city employees has increased, she continues to operate with less staffing than her predecessor.

We are very fortunate to have Karen Hamman serving the 98,000 residents of Mission Viejo. Based on my many years of directly interacting with her I strongly recommend Karen Hamman for this much deserved and earned award.”

Our City manager sent me a note acknowledging her getting this award with a comment that “the President made a point to highlight the uniqueness of a City Clerk to receive such complimentary letters from community activists…apparently this has never occurred before.”

Gilbert final thoughts. While I have numerous issues with some members of our city staff and our city council that does not preclude me from commending any of them for a job well done.
Feel free to congratulate her if your paths cross. She is very humble and knows that I am taking liberties in blogging this special acknowledgment.