Q & A: GARDEN GROVE CITY CLERK CAROLYN MORRIS

Garden Grove City Clerk Carolyn Morris has retired after more than 24 years with the city. Morris, who just turned 60, held the clerk’s position since 1981 and was deputy city clerk for eight years before that. She recently shared with correspondent Cathy Werblin some of her thoughts about leaving.

Q: What has changed in the time you’ve spent here?

A: There have been a lot of physical changes. When I first came to work here, none of the Civic Center buildings were here. There were small homes on this property, and the only things here were the library, the Police Department and the old City Hall.

Q: What did you find the most challenging part of the job?

A: Aside from all the legal deadlines and ramifications of what you do, probably the hardest thing is remaining neutral. The success of the office comes from our being politically neutral. We work for all five council members, and even if they don’t get along, we stay neutral. That’s why you don’t often find scandals in city clerk’s offices, and that’s why we’re effective.

Q: In your 24 years, what was the most interesting thing that happened?

A: Two real periods of transition were really interesting. We went from physically running our own elections--from setting up polling places and finding workers to staff those places and counting ballots--to having the county handle all of it. Now they do all the time-consuming stuff, and they let us know the tallies. That was a big workload off our backs and ended up being about half the cost of doing it ourselves. The other real transition was when development really started around here--when the Community Meeting Center and the senior center were built in the late 1970s.

Q: Which of the elections was most interesting?

A: The special election held last year was a challenge. To have been with the city for 24 years and never had a recall that went beyond talk stages, or an initiative petition, is really rare. The initiative petition we had was the first one ever turned in that we had to have signatures verified on. I wasn’t nervous, but I was frustrated and stressed because we had just moved in this building. The petition was served on us two days before we moved, and all public records were in boxes. The only other special election was when Mayor John Cannon was appointed a judge in 1987.

Q: What do you have planned for your retirement?

A: I have three trips planned between my retirement and the end of the year, plus about six months of projects to do around the house. I’m going to miss the people, but one of the things I’m not going to miss are the council meetings. I’m not really convinced that I’m ready to quit working altogether. . . . Maybe I’ll do something part time and fun. I’ve always wanted to work at Disneyland.