Laura Young
ECB Publishing, Inc.
In the 2023 election of City Clerk for the City of Monticello, two candidates have qualified to appear on the ballot: James Griffin and Vivian “Judy” Hall Royster. Residents who live in the City of Monticello – Precincts 2.2, 5.2, 6.2, 7.2, 8.2 and 9.2 – may vote in this election.
All in-person voting in this election will take place at the Supervisor of Elections Office, located at 1175, W. Washington St., in Monticello.
On Election Day, which is Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2023, the Elections Office will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Early Voting also is available at the Elections Office from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. on the following dates:
Sunday, Oct. 29, 2023
Monday, Oct. 30, 2023
Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2023
Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2023
Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023
Friday, Nov. 3, 2023
Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023
State law now requires that mail-in ballots be requested no later than12 days before Election Day, so any city residents wanting to use this voting option must have requested their mail-in ballot by Thursday, Oct. 26. Note that voters who requested a vote-by-mail ballot for an election in a previous year must make a new request for this election year. If submitting a ballot by mail, voters are encouraged to send in their completed ballots as soon as possible, to allow for timely Post Office delivery. For more information about voting, contact the Elections Office at (850) 997-3348.
On Tuesday, Oct. 17, the Jefferson County Elections Office successfully conducted the public testing of voting machines for the upcoming election. For every machine tested, the results showed 100 percent success for “Logic,” which is the machine's ability to read the correct race in the correct order, as well as “Accuracy,” which is the machine's ability to read the marks and tabulate them correctly. The machines are ready to start accurately counting votes for the City Clerk election, including mail-in ballots, ballots cast in early voting and ballots cast on election day.
The Logic and Accuracy (L&A) Testing is required by law and is conducted by the local canvassing board together with technical staff from the voting machine manufacturer. The City Canvassing Board for this test included City Clerk Emily Anderson, City Council Member George Evans and City Council Member Julie Conley, who joined Supervisor of Elections Michelle Milligan and Chief Deputy Lee Davis during the testing session. Both City Clerk candidates also were present to observe the test, which was open to the public.
In the interest of having informed voters, the Monticello News sent each candidate for City Clerk a questionnaire related to this election, and their responses are provided below:
James Griffin - Candidate for City Clerk
Question: Why are you running for City Clerk?
Answer: To serve the citizens of Monticello and give back to the community that I grew up in.
Q: What is your understanding of the role of City Clerk/Treasurer?”
A: The Clerk's Office is responsible for maintaining and providing clerical and record keeping, financial and administrative function for the City Council and the City Manager.
Q: What experience do you have in managing and maintaining public records?
A: As a manager with the Department of Corrections and the Florida Legislature, I was responsible for securing digitized records.
Q: What is your knowledge of the Florida Sunshine Law?
A: All meetings and records are to be made accessible to the public except those protected by statute.
Q: What experience do you have in preparing agendas and minutes?
A: I have conducted many meetings throughout my 31 years of state service.
Q: What experience do you have in grant administration?
A: Very little experience with grants.
Q: What knowledge and experience do you have in accounting principles for public agencies?
A: I have managed significant budgets with my employment at the Department of Corrections and the Legislature.
Q: How do you intend to prepare for taking office?
A: Working closely with the current clerk to ensure a smooth transition.
Q: What is your familiarity with Excel, Quickbooks and other accounting software?
A: Over my 31 years of state service, I have worked with and maintained computer equipment from desktop computers to mainframe supercomputers, including hardware, software and operating systems.
Q: What do think best qualifies you for the office of City Clerk? List employment, experience, qualifications, etc.
A: Florida Supreme Court, 1990-1996
Justice Data Center
Computer Operator
Florida Dept. of Corrections, 1996-2013
Data Processing Manager/Data Center Manager
Manage Helpdesk (8 person), manage Data Center (8 person), manage contracts, multimillion dollar budget
The Florida Legislature, 2013-2021
Office of Legislative Information Technology Services (OLITS)
Information Systems Manager
Manage Helpdesk (3 person) , manage security (1 person), manage projects (4 person)
I also have experience with HR budgets, record keeping and FOIA requests, risk assessment and risk management, managing multiple persons doing multiple jobs and contract management.
Q: What specific set of skills would you bring to the office?
A: Knowledge of government processes and procedures, budgets, HR skills. Born and raised in Monticello.
Q: What, if any, clubs, community groups or organizations do you presently belong to, or have you being involved with in the past?
A: None.
Q: Have you ever been arrested, and if so, when and why?
A: No.
Q: How accessible to the public would you be if elected?
A: I will always be accessible to the citizens of Monticello and the rest of the public.
Vivian “Judy” Hall Royster - Candidate for City Clerk/Treasurer
Question: Why are you running for City Clerk?
Answer: After being persuaded by several persons from the community, after the Monticello community itself was made aware that our long-time serving City Clerk/Treasurer would not be seeking re-election during the upcoming City Election cycle, after having served, and having served with distinction and exemplary leadership for some 30 years of having been elected in general to the office of City Clerk/Treasurer, yours truly, after much prayerful deliberation and consultation, made the decision to serve as a candidate for this office.
Q: What is your understanding of the role of City Clerk/Treasurer?”
A: Having been “endowed to lead and inspired to serve,” believing that the “power to serve humbly is the essence of leadership, leadership that inspires, engages, enhances, and empowers, to serve this community as a bridge between City Council and the City Manager, and the Manager and the Council, through proven best practices of collaborative and strategic leadership and community engagement, and revitalization, to realize democratic principles over politics, but not limited to, for example: needs assessment survey for neighborhood revitalization that would serve as an instrument to measure community effectiveness, legislative priorities from the community neighborhoods, and presence that would serve as part of critical community engagement for strategic planning and overall strategic visioning, in partnership with our other community partners, i.e., our community schools, our county commission, our Big Bend Regional partners, our educational institutions and our small/rural cities/counties development to advance economic development, etc.
Q: What is your familiarity with Excel, Quickbooks and other accounting software?
A: Yes, Excel is a Mircrosoft product that is used to load numerical data for reports including budget allocations and spending plans including periodic and annual reports that are necessary for documentation and digital marketing and archives, especially applicable for this office in collaboration with the Accounting Consulting Office, per the City Clerk in collaboration with the City Manager and Council in preparation for periodic audits and auditing.
Quickbooks is a dedicated accounting and human resources management software package that is employed to eliminate the need for paper or manual files for the same. It is an effective and widely used dedicated e-tool in office settings, especially as this relates to payroll and overall HR management for the Office of the City Clerk/Treasurer in Monticello.
Relative to technology advancements and enhancements, yours truly has had the opportunity to use several dedicated and integrated, internet-based systems down through the years, beginning around the early 1970s to date. One of my distinctive responsibilities as an executive leadership administrator in higher education, while serving as an associate dean and professor and later as retiring dean and professor, was being appointed chair of the State University System of Florida Committee on Technology in Higher Education whose primary goal was laying out and designing a strategic plan and goals for advancing the University System Libraries from dedicated to integrated environments which have continued to this day to meet the accreditation standards in higher education, as per COSACS. I bring over 50 years of executive leadership service to higher education.
Q: What do think best qualifies you for the office of City Clerk? List employment, experience, qualifications, etc.
A: I hold degrees in the following: B.S. LIMS (FAMU), M.S. LIS (Clark Atlanta Univ.), Ph.D. (The Florida State University COCI).
Q: What specific set of skills would you bring to the office?
A: Executive leadership and consulting advisory gifts, skills, experiences and responsibilities, especially creativity and innovations in leadership, development and applications in higher ed.
Q: How accessible to the public would you be if elected?
A: Building upon the legacy of the present city City Clerk/Treasurer, as per public access courtesies, I will always be accessible to the public. Always being approachable and engaging, etc. With this in mind, I believe in being accessible, having an open door policy and believing in and supporting the Florida Sunshine Law, that being accessible is a part of the democratic process. After all, this is a non-partisan election, a non-partisan position. Equally so, the Sunshine Law prohibits denial of public access to all public meetings, regular and special, with exceptions to the executive sessions dealing with personnel issues, especially those dealing with sensitive personnel issues (i.e. terminations or firings, etc.), as defined in the Fla. Statutes.
Q: What is your knowledge of the Florida Sunshine Law?
A: As outlined already, but additionally, my ability to work with persons of all backgrounds, ethnicities, races, creeds, genders, orientation/identity, color, nationality or religious beliefs, etc., believing that we all bring gifts to the table, and we all deserve respect and representation at the table, having always worked in management and executive leadership, always having been recruited, nominated and appointed to work in every assignment I have been blessed to work in. I've never had to apply for a job, in other words; and I am humbled by this, and the opportunities to serve, never taking any of this for granted.
Q: What, if any, clubs, community groups or organizations do you presently belong to, or have you being involved with in the past?
A: Believing in the power of diversity of ideas, strategic collaboration, innovation, and creativity, revitalization, and strategic enhancements through community engagement to realize a commitment to respectful dialog in an effort to navigate through diverse perspectives to realize strategic goals through community collaboration, it is essential, it is critical to our success in our desire to revitalize, as applicable to this endeavor and desire to serve as your City Clerk/Treasurer, to be involved in our communities and around our nation. We have been and we continue to serve our community in the following settings: The Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., having served as the Founding Advisor to the Florida State University Zeta Omicron Chapter, and Undergraduate Adviser to the Florida A&M Beta Alpha Chapter (where I was initiated in and am a Golden Soror of AKA); President of both FSU's College of Communication (formerly the School of Information Studies Alumni Association and the FAMU National Alumni Association's Jefferson County Chapter, the Order of the Eastern Star; the Heroines of Jericho, Venus Chapter #65; the Monticello Women's Club, (invited member), serving with distinction; the Howard Academy Educational and Recreational Council, Inc., served as Assistant Secretary and Consulting Advisor; Founder of the Howard Academy High School Alumni Association and Alumni Association Foundation; Founder, Eastside Neighborhood Association (ESNA), formerly Roostertown); and founder of the Society for the Study, Advancement, Preservation and Appreciation of African-American History, Life, and Culture; the American Management Association; the American Library Association.
Always with a demonstrated mantra of leadership that inspires, we look forward to serving the beloved City of Monticello and its citizens with humility and dedicated commitment.
I am reminded of the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (paraphrased):
“...Use me Lord, use me/ Take who I am, and / Who I desire to be, / Taking me out of me, / And use me, Lord, use me/ For a purpose greater than myself...”
And Robert Frost (paraphrased): “... For I have miles to go before I sleep / Miles to go before I sleep...”
For one writer reminded us, especially now “...In times like these/ We need an anchor... Be very sure your anchor holds and grips the solid rock...”
Q: What experience do you have in managing and maintaining public records?
A: As a past president of the FAMU Black Archives and Research Center and Associate Dean of Libraries for Collection Management, public records management was a major part of my responsibilities.
Q: What experience do you have in preparing agendas and minutes?
A: Thoroughly familiar with preparing agendas and minutes. I have served and continue to serve as secretary, and recorder for several professional organizations and professional assignments, filing records as hard copies and e-copies.
Q: What experience do you have in grant administration?
A: Significant years of experience and responsibility with grand proposals and administration.
Q: What knowledge and experience do you have in accounting principles for public agencies?
A:I bring significant experience and responsibility relative to GAAP for public agencies, including government agencies that have included the State University System of Florida.
Q: How do you intend to prepare for taking office?
A: Ensuring that relevant reviews and communication with the present or sitting Clerk through “shadowing” is done to ensure continuity of planning and budgeting principles and laws are carried out upon taking office when elected.
Q: Have you ever been arrested, and if so, when and why?
A: No, never.
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