Longtime New Canaan town clerk urges keeping post elected, warns of privacy and independence risks from appointment

Claudia Weber, New Canaan’s elected town clerk for nearly three decades, urged the Charter Revision Commission on Feb. 17 to keep the town clerk’s office elective, saying voters’ oversight helps preserve independence and protect residents’ private land-record data.

"The town clerk should remain as an elected officer of the town," Weber told commissioners, laying out five reasons: accountability and independence, the clerk’s role in setting policy within statutory limits, guarding against cronyism, checks and balances (the ability to refuse unlawful or improper requests), and responsibility for managing absentee ballots, referenda and certification of municipal elections.

Weber said much of the clerk’s work is constrained by state statute — down to vendor choices and document formats — and that forcing the office to answer to a local appointing authority risks conflicts with state-mandated procedures. She described situations where she declined to certify minutes, refused to post land records with unredacted Social Security numbers, and resisted instructions she said would have slowed absentee-ballot procedures.

Commissioners asked Weber about succession and staffing if the office remained elective. Weber said she expects trained staff and statewide professional associations (including mentoring programs through the International Institute of Municipal Clerks) would help a successor but acknowledged concerns that a small pool of locally based, experienced candidates might complicate recruitment.

Weber also proposed a set of charter changes and clarifications: keep the treasurer elected to ensure independent financial oversight, avoid combining the assessor and tax collector roles (she flagged a potential conflict of interest), add town-council-appointed protections for the seal/logo or include charter language if members want it locked in, permit referenda on sale/transfer of public land if voters request it, and require that an official meeting recording take precedence when minutes and recordings conflict.

Commission members from the town council and board of finance responded with a broader governance discussion that touched on whether certain technical bodies (Planning & Zoning, Board of Finance) should be appointed rather than elected, how to ensure minority-party representation on appointed boards, appointment transparency, and the potential merits of creating a town manager or administrator to handle increasingly complex administrative demands.

No formal charter changes were adopted at the meeting. Commissioners asked Weber to submit her written comments electronically and said they would send follow-up questions in writing; the commission also agreed to schedule additional special meetings to cover items that ran long during the Feb. 17 session.