Springfield city clerk sets retirement date

Springfield City Clerk Brenda Cirtin has laid out a transition plan for her retirement in August.

Effective March 16, assistant City Clerk Anita Cotter will step in as acting city clerk, and Cirtin will become city clerk emeritus to smooth the transition, according to a news release.

During the transition period, Cirtin is slated to work on special projects for the city. She said this morning the work would comprise digitizing City Council records dating back to the 1800s up until the mid-1990s.

“I truly appreciate the opportunity City Council is giving me to work on some projects I’ve wanted to complete for many years,” Cirtin said in the release. “These projects will help preserve the history of Springfield’s City Council. If we lose this history, we will never be able to recover it.

“With the advances in technology that have been made in the past years, this is an opportunity to capture this information electronically to ensure its posterity.”

City clerk since 1993, Cirtin in 2012 was named Outstanding City Clerk by the Missouri City Clerks and Finance Officers Association, a statewide professional organization of municipal clerks and finance officers. She also served a year as president of the International Institute for Municipal Clerks.

As acting city clerk, Cotter is responsible for supporting the mayor and council, recording the official minutes of council meetings and city boards, commissions and committees, supervising office and clerical support functions, coordinating municipal elections and petitions, and keeping city records, according to the release.