An already crowded election ballot includes yet another set of bubbles to fill. Organizations and businesses are becoming more technologically oriented so as not to not lose footing in the move toward the future. With this shift, the question arises whether governmental entities should follow.

The current city clerk position is likewise evolving to a spot where an educational background of database maintenance, for example, may assist the city of DeKalb’s move in the direction. Currently, the city clerk position is an elected one. The clerk takes the minutes of the city council meetings, as well as serving the voice of city history. He or she is familiar with the background of the city because the clerk, as a job function, catalogs city changes as they occur.

Switching from electing the position to appointing a person to the seat is up for debate. However, allowing each new mayor to appoint a city clerk is clumsy. The possibility of a high turnover of city clerks raises the issue of a lack of immediately-accessible personal familiarity with city changes. A new city clerk cannot be as familiar with a city’s growth as the last clerk. The experience won’t be there.

The city clerk records what is said at each city council meeting. If he or she is partial to the sitting mayor, the minutes she documents have the potential to be biased. If the city clerk knows his or her position is appointed by the mayor, what’s to say that individual, to keep his or her seat, won’t alter the written record to better reflect upon the mayor?

DeKalb is a democracy. Whether the size of DeKalb’s informed electorate is enough to make the right choice, we need to trust that electorate. A democracy operates with the understanding that a decision is in the people’s hands. DeKalb needs to follow that example.