LYNNFIELD — Another high-level town employee is calling it quits.
Lynnfield Town Clerk Trudy L. Reid tendered her resignation at the Dec. 2 selectmen’s meeting at the Al Merritt Media and Cultural Center at MarketStreet.
Reid’s last day on the job will be December 19. She will then take some time off to prepare for her new position as Town Clerk in North Andover.
“I’ve enjoyed my time in Lynnfield and feel that I have done a lot during the last few years,” said Reid. “I’ve had incredible support from the town administration and officials, which is critical because you can’t survive without support and it’s been great.
“But I want to get more involved in municipal licensing, which I can’t do here, so I feel that North Andover came along at the right time and offers a much more challenging situation, so I am anxious to get in there December 30 and be ready to get to work Jan. 2.”
Reid was appointed Lynnfield Town Clerk in 2014, succeeding Amy Summers, who resigned in January 2014 to accept the Town Clerk position in Stoughton.
Under her leadership, Reid brought the town’s election process, Town Meeting, and many other aspects of town governance into the electronic age. She implemented online vital records requests and attendant payment system and online dog registration and payment system.
Reid served on the Town Meeting study committee and implemented electronic check-in and voting systems to increase efficiency and provide enhanced voter privacy. She also initiated a new program for the preservation of important permanent town records. The co-manager of the town’s website and social media pages, Reid also re-designed the polling location layout for improved voter access and efficiency.
Reid said her favorite part of the job revolved around Lynnfield’s elections.
“I loved the elections and am very proud of the fact that I helped bring election workers up to speed to the point where, had I been hit by a bus, they would have been able to run it without me. That’s so important. As the chief election officer in the town, everything is on me to make sure that we have a system in place on election day that ensures that people get the right ballots. Election day is all about the voter and need to make sure that they don’t dread the voting process, and also make sure that the voting process is a pleasant experience for voters.”
Reid, who is the Town Moderator in Wenham, said she realized shortly after arriving in Lynnfield that she needed to shore up certain aspects of the way the office conducted its business, as well as cleaning up the voter list and voter registration cards and implementing internal procedures to ensure full compliance with all election laws, campaign finance guidelines and candidate filing requirements.
“I am a stickler on rules and we needed to start doing the things they should have been doing all along,” Reid said. “We need to follow the letter of the law when it came to having each party chair submitting the list of elections workers to the board, which it wasn’t doing. We brought the assignment of election workers back in house, the way it’s supposed to be, and we fixed an irregular swearing-in procedure as well, and many other things to make sure we were in total compliance with the law.”
Selectmen Chris Barrett and Dick Dalton said Reid will be missed.
“Trudy was always looking for ways to improve the Town Meeting and was always very positive,” said Barrett. “She was a good friend to all of us and I wish her the very best. I know we can do it, but we have some big shoes to fill.”
Dalton agreed.
“In five years, Trudy brought a high level of professionalism to the job,” he said. “She moved the ball forward on so many fronts and will be sorely missed.”
Assistant Town Clerk Diane Hammerbeck, who served as interim Town Clerk prior to Reid’s arrival, was appointed interim Town Clerk.
“She has served in that capacity before, so for now, that’s the plan going forward until someone has been hired if there is a gap,” said assistant Town Administrator Bob Curtin. “Trudy is starting to spread the word through the Massachusetts Town Clerks Association and we are starting to see some responses.”
Curtin said the position has been posted internally and is also posted on the Massachusetts Municipal Association website.
