Committee of the Whole refers City Clerk Eileen Simons' reappointment to full council after review of five goals

The Salem City Council Committee of the Whole on Feb. 12, 2025 referred City Clerk Eileen Simons’ reappointment to the full City Council with a positive recommendation, after discussing five goals set at last year’s reappointment and hearing public comment and council feedback. The referral passed by voice/count among those present; nine members voted in favor and two councilors (Jerslow and Varela) were absent.

The committee review focused on five goals the council set during Simons’ September reappointment: technology adoption and agenda management; public document accessibility; customer-service improvements; diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) integration; and regular collaboration with the mayor’s staff. Simons told the committee she had emailed members a status update and supporting documentation and walked through each goal in turn.

On technology and agenda management, City Clerk Eileen Simons said she worked with CivicPlus and had earlier in-person training with Amy Douglas; she said the council’s agenda now appears in both the public portal and the board portal and that she published the first agenda to those portals this week. Simons described an interim workflow in which the mayor’s office is placing council agenda PDFs in a shared folder that her office extracts and re-formats into the portal. “I sent everybody an email with an explanation of the 5 goals, the status of them, the, what I, the steps taken to, accomplish them,” Simons said. Councilors praised the change as a major step toward transparency: “But I’m just really pleased that we finally have the agenda,” Councilor Marcello said, adding that training and small interface changes will take time.

Councilors and the clerk also discussed a public shared drive for committee backup materials. Simons said the shared drive procedure was emailed to councilors in January and that the drive is now accessible to the public and to councilors. Several councilors said backup materials are only useful if departments and committee chairs keep them up to date; Councilor Marcello pressed that some items, including the text for a recent home-rule petition, were not easy to find on the drive and asked Simons to double-check its contents. Simons acknowledged that occasional gaps occur and said she and staff would continue refining folder structure and procedures so items referred to committee appear in the correct subfolder.

On customer service, Simons reported she arranged a training session provided by an employee-assistance provider (referred to in materials as All 1 Health), which included city hall front-office staff and some staff from other departments. She said staff rated a number of additional training topics and that she will coordinate follow-up sessions. Councilors framed DEI-related training as complementary to customer-service goals, emphasizing that front-line staff (receptionists, poll workers) shape residents’ experience regardless of legal limits on records or services.

On DEI integration and language access, Simons said she met with the city solicitor’s office and with Regina (DEI director) to pursue staff language assessments and training. She reported that two bilingual employees in the clerk’s office passed language assessments and are now receiving the bilingual stipend. Simons also provided the committee with vendor quotes for Spanish translation services; she said the estimates arrived after the budget cycle but that the clerk’s office had set aside a small line item for translation and would seek ways to expand access. Dr. Alexander Benito Shields, chair of the Board of Registrars, urged the council to set additional, measurable milestones and to sustain collaboration between the clerk’s office and the DEI director so immigrant and marginalized residents can access government functions more fully. “Eileen has begun the process of using technology to advance transparency, access, and democracy in our city,” Shields said.

Councilors raised voter-access and turnout as continuing concerns. Several councilors noted lower turnout in parts of the city with larger immigrant or low-income populations and encouraged outreach, language access at polling places and continued recruitment of bilingual poll workers. Simons said sample ballots have been bilingual since 2022 and that recruiting additional bilingual poll workers is an ongoing need.

Councilors also discussed the planned transfer of some election responsibilities away from the clerk’s office (a topic several councilors said could alter which office carries long-term outreach tasks). Councilor Stott noted that if election oversight shifts—planned for a future date—the council should consider where voter-outreach goals will be housed going forward.

Public comment at the meeting included praise for Simons’ work from longtime residents and civic leaders. Tom Fiore and Elissa Rose Martin thanked the clerk for improvements to chamber operations and for the increase in transparency; both urged continuation of DEI milestones and attention to community impact. Several councilors said the public may provide operational feedback via council channels; Councilor Watsonfeld reminded residents they may email citycouncilors@salem.com with praise or concerns.

At the end of the session Councilor Marcela moved to refer the clerk’s appointment to the full council with a positive recommendation; the motion was seconded by Councilor Harvey and carried by the members present (nine in favor, none opposed). The committee then voted to adjourn. The referral is scheduled to be considered by the full City Council at its next meeting.