 Hello everyone and welcome. I'm James Mulan. I am talking one-on-one with Janice Wieber, the current acting clerk who is also up for election as town clerk. Janice, thanks for joining us, especially given the fact that you, as much as anybody in this town, have had to have been going crazy down for a while. Well, I think Christine Buongiorno is going crazy than I am. She has a lot more on her plate, and I'm the assistant town clerk, not the acting. Sorry, assistant. Thank you for that correct. No, appreciate that correction. Anyway, it's a big, big job that you have at the moment, and one that you're also interested in taking on. So one of the first things I wanted to ask you about is both of the other candidates in the race have made, I think, quite a bit of the idea that change needs to be brought to the town clerk's office, and they have their ideas for what that constitutes and how to do it, et cetera. I'm wondering, how do you feel about that from, as somebody who's working in the office and has for a while, do you feel that changes are required? Yes, absolutely. I've felt that way for quite a few years. We need more technology, but not a lot can be technology. A lot of it has to be in-person kind of things and like that, but we can run on the way we are, but we definitely need more technology in the office. And I've been saying that for quite a while, but I have no way to enforce that until... Yeah, what are the obstacles there? Is it a question of money? No, well, it is money, of course, but especially now we're probably going through it all. The thing is we need to get connections for online access to things, but talking to the treasurer's office and to other offices, that has to go through them. We can't just initiate that we can have a credit card in our office. It's not really up to us and it has to be beneficial to both the town and the customers. So right now, the treasurer's office, they have to pay a 2.5% fee if they just use their credit card. So it's not like a 25 cent fee. The only way it's a 25 cent fee is if they go through their checking account. And I've checked several times that the treasurer is about this because I wasn't sure I got it straight, but that's definitely what it is. You're saying that if people go through their checking accounts, then they just have to pay a 25% fee for that treasurer? No, a 25 cent fee. I'm sorry, 25 cent. Thank you. I believe... It's a small fee, but if they go through their credit card company, I mean, people that are paying exorbitant to tax bills, they have paid up to $90 in a fee. And I just got a letter from a lady the other day, actually. It happened to come on my email. I don't know why, but she said the very same thing. She was paying a $290 bill or something like that. I don't have the exact figure. And it was going to cost her $9.90. She didn't have any idea of that when she was going into the computer. So I'd like to get that straightened out. Yeah, sounds like part of the problem in terms of moving forward with some technological advances or changes is just that it may cost the people who are actually availing themselves with the services, the public. Exactly. What about the idea that... How hard would it be to... One of the things that both Julie Brazil and Patty Sautel have been talking about is transferring the existing paper records and content over into electronic formats easier to manipulate and work with. Well, we have done that. We have some of the marriages. We have the deaths and the births are all electronic now. The older ones aren't, but that, of course, is an exorbitant cost, but that would be nice to have it done. We do have a program for the old records that we have to actually type up a form for. Once it's typed up, it goes into the queue and stays in there. So if you have to look for it again, you just have to search by the name or the birth date or the death date. The marriages aren't quite the same, but we're getting there with those. So it's really... The books go back to the 1800s, some 1600s. So as I said, it would be... We would have to have an agency do that. We couldn't do that ourselves unless it's my retirement job, then I could do it. Well, obviously, the things that people are most concerned about is how to streamline the processes that are most relevant for now, of course. Well, they're pretty fast now. I mean, when someone calls me for a birth certificate, I just ask their name and their birth date and I'm right there with the computer and I can look it up to make sure it's here and then have it ready and they come in and they get it. That's what they've been doing all along anyway. If they're far away, we have to mail it, obviously, but yeah, it's pretty fast. And technology, obviously, is just one piece of what you do or one component that could help you to do that work even better. The biggest thing, as far as I can tell, is my own interaction as a resident of Arlington with the town clerk's office must be reflected in everybody else's, by which I mean, sometimes I need something. I'm going to go in there. I'm going to interface with the people who are there and see how quickly and efficiently I can get done what I need done. And that's my experience, right? And again, that's, I assume, how everybody else in town is dealing with the clerk's office a lot of the time. On that level, how do you feel like things are functioning currently and are there any changes that you would feel in terms of the way that you guys interact with the public that you would like to see, you know, changes you'd like to see made? Well, right now, all we do is if they call up and they need something, they're coming down to get it, we have it ready the minute they get there. So there's no waiting, but it's kind of nice to talk to people. And a lot of times, especially the older people like myself, we talk about the old Arlington and who you know, and who you don't know, and, you know, make connections. And there are people from out of town who know people in Arlington and came here when they were youngsters, and that kind of thing. It's nice to have that personal interaction. But we try to do, we definitely do it as fast as we can. I mean, if they can't send a check or they need it right away, we just send it out to them and with a fee due and everybody sends their money back. I mean, nobody tries to get away with it. So, you know, it's pretty fast. I haven't seen you in there, Jim. You know, I actually have been in there at different times in the last couple of years, just again, to transact a little business. And, you know, it's gone fine, I have to say. But one of the things that you have hit on in conversations before, including the debate, is this kind of long held, I think, sense that clerk's office is a place where a lot of work needs to happen. And the resources aren't necessarily there for, you know, to support that work. Is that your sense? And is there anything that you can imagine how that can change? Yes. There's always room for improvement for everything. And the state computers are, excuse me, they're obviously separate from our computers, but they're not on our desktops. So, anytime we have to research there, we have to go over to the computer, the one that's in the office on the counter. And you go over and you find out the information of the person, you come back, then ask you another question about the same thing, and you go back and forth. It's not that it kills me to go back and forth. It's just time consuming for the person on the phone. So, we've been trying to negotiate with the state and with the town, because we have more state computers in the back room. They're just all in the back room. We want them on our desks. That would expedite a lot of things for us. And that's a negotiation I have to make. And I've tried, but... When you say state computers, just to clarify, make sure I understand. You mean computers that are connected to the state databases and other... Yes. It's the voter registration information system. And you can search people, you know, people will call up and say, is this person a voter there? Well, you can search to see where they're living now for the person if we have their birth date. So, it's quite convenient for a lot of people. It's just... It would be much more convenient on our desks. Yeah. And what does it take to change that? Well, it's interesting. I went to a conference and one girl said she had a plug... She had an extension to go into the next room to get the computer in that room. And it was $2,000. And it was only going through a wall. So, I was in the back room. So, of course, it's an old building and there's a lot of old wiring here and there. And you need to be close. Thing is, you need to be close to the router. So, the town has to do the electrical work. We have to pay for that. But the state will come out and change the things and fix them to where we want them. And we are getting... Actually, we're getting new computers while we were supposed to get them now, but because of the corona, we're not getting them yet. But those are free from the state. So, that's why I wanted to have... If I could get the electrical connections that when the new ones come in, we could just have them on our desk. We have them there. It's just that they're all in one room, except for one. You just mentioned the coronavirus and amazing that we could have a conversation even for 10 minutes without it coming up already. But obviously, COVID-19 has messed with your work in a big way over the last couple of months, as it has for everybody. I'm wondering though, is there anything that has come up because of what you've had to do as a result of the pandemic? Is there anything that has been an innovation that has been something that you'll want to take forward with you on the other side of this as a different way of doing things, a different kind of either technology or processes you've used, anything like that? Well, I have done one thing. The business certificates, what I do is I email the form to the person that wants the business certificate. They fill out the information, send it back to me. I put it on a business certificate for them, send it back to them for any corrections, and if they say it's okay, then I process it and certify it, and then they come downstairs in the parking lot to the door, and we transfer that, and they give us the check. So that's been working fine. The only thing I haven't been doing is marriage intentions because I've been the only one in the office. Now the girls are starting to come in a little bit at a time, but I've been the only one in the office. And the marriage intentions are a little more close up because the people have to fill out three forms. You have to go over the forms with them, and if you're writing them, it's very different. Exactly. I mean, there are towns that do it, and I always email the people, the towns that are doing it, to get their intentions. Who lives in Arlington doesn't necessarily have to do that here. Well, I chose not to do it because of the interaction and the time it takes, and you have to run downstairs to do it and run back upstairs to do something, you know, and it's a longer process. Yeah, I just was, I hadn't been clear on the fact that that wasn't something that Arlington residents needed to do in Arlington. In fact, they can do it at other offices. They can do it anywhere in Massachusetts as long as they're getting married in Massachusetts. So I've been sending them all to Concord. I hope they're not mad at me. Give them something to do out there in Concord. Well, I don't know if they've got a vote, you know, that they've got to get ready for or not, but I think you've got more than enough to do. We've got about two minutes left or so of our time. We don't have to take all of it, but I wanted to make sure that we don't leave anything unmentioned or undiscussed that you wanted to make sure you communicated to the voters. Well, I just hope they realize that we're doing the best we can, getting everything out. We have all of our absentee ballots in the mail now that we've had in the office and that's about a thousand. We did have a problem with the overseas because at first they said we couldn't send them because we only can snail mail the town ballot. We can't email it as we do for the others overseas, so there was a little glitch there and a couple of people which understandably were upset because the children couldn't get the ballots, but then I got a list that said some of the countries could get it and I sent it to like all of the countries, whether they could get it or not because maybe they can get it through, who knows. Everything's in the mail for that and the postcards are in the mail now, so people should be getting those shortly to receive in for an absentee ballot. Oh, and they're just so they know there will be three drop boxes on Longmass Avenue to put your ballot in when you finish with it and it will be in the heights, the center and East Allington. Great information for people. Obviously, we're all doing these things for the first time. I know. You know that better than we are. It's probably not going to be the last time this year too, unfortunately. Right, more elections coming up and yeah, you're already having to anticipate that, I would think. Yeah. All right, we want to thank you very much for your time. Well, thank you for the time. I appreciate it. All of you stay safe. And you. Thank you. I've been speaking to Janice Weber, who is the assistant town clerk and in the running four town clerk for this year of 2020. I'm James Milan. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time.