Florence town clerk Lisa Garcia receives Gabe Zimmerman Award, urges civic education and preserving local history

Lisa Garcia, Florence’s town clerk and deputy town manager, said she was honored last month to receive the Gabe Zimmerman Award from the Center for the Future of Arizona and described efforts to use municipal government to teach local history and encourage civic participation.

The award recognizes staff who work behind the scenes to connect the public to government. “I was the first clerk to ever receive this award,” Garcia said on the town’s Moment with the Mayor podcast. “Everything I do … my true love is to the clerk profession and to the transparency that the clerk profession brings.”

The award presentation occurred during an Arizona City Managers Association event, Garcia said, and her son and the town manager attended. She described the moment as personal and as recognition for the time municipal employees and their families spend on public service.

Garcia, who…