The Committee to Elect Cathy Harder-Bernier

Bill Cass, Chairman,

Daniel Bernier, Treasurer

Joe DeFerrari, Website Adminstrator

143 Maplewood Drive
Hanover, MA  02339

Email: cathyhb@comcast.net

Or use our contact form.

As Town Clerk, I like to connect with my fellow Hanoverians as much as possible. Check out our News page to see the latest.

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(See Cathy's most recent accomplishments as Town Clerk for the Town of Hanover, MA.)

Elections - "Delivering democracy to residents"

• Ran 4 elections in May, September, November, and the Presidential Primary in March
• Held second Hanover High School Mock Election; raised awareness to encourage life-long voting habits; increased regular election turnout
• Attended numerous election trainings
• Prepared to purchase new voting machines

Elections - "Professionalization of the polls"

• Interviewed and increased election staff in order to meet state requirements and insure accuracy at the polls
• Held first ever election training for poll workers in Hanover last April 2015 using Sec. of State trainer
• Led first-ever in-house training for Clerks and Wardens (senior election staff) in 2015
• Led first-ever in-house voluntary participation election training for Inspectors and Tellers in February 2016
• Requesting money for next year to make training mandatory

Census and Voter Registration

• Worked as a member of the Board of Registrars to send 900 letters notifying residents that they had been placed on inactive voter list in June 2015 (rather than being erroneously deleted as in the past)
• Oversaw voter registration data inter-state cross-check to eliminate duplicate voters
• Publicized on-line voter registration resulting in hundreds of new voters prior to Presidential Primary

Business Certificates

• Senior tax-workoff employee inputted thousands of old “doing business as” records into new database
• Database was cleaned up and cross-checked with Assessor’s records
• 881 letters were sent to businesses with expired DBA certificates in November 2015
• $5,040 growth in revenue in 2015 over 2014, on pace for $12,840 growth over 2014 in 2016
• Consumer protection for residents –priceless...

Dog Licenses

• Shortened licensing period from 4 months to 3 and reduced late fee from $35 to $10in an effort to increase urgency and soften compliance
• Changed dog license fees by-law to make it consistent with rest of town’s fees via an article on 2015 warrant
• Included dog license application with census for first time; issued more dog licenses in the first three months of 2016 than in all of 2015
• Have made on-line licensing part of my re-election campaign platform; also considering multi-year license fees and no fee for senior citizens over age 70

Open Meeting Law

• Worked with the new Attorney General’s Office to hold the first Open Meeting Law training in recent memory in April of 2015

Town's By-Laws

• After May 2015 Annual Town Meeting amended the Affordable Housing Trust By-Law, and after considerable research, I discovered that the 2009 By-Law changes (including the acceptance of the AHT) had never been submitted to the Attorney General
• Worked with Town Counsel, Town Planner and Town Manager to research 2009 changes
• Worked with Attorney General to submit 2009 records and 2015 interpretation of 2009 Town Meeting action
• Submitted reams of paper to AG, ultimately resulting in 2009 changes being accepted by AG, thereby keeping town out of legal trouble

Document preservation

• Used CPC money to retro-fit one of the town’s jail cells; it is now used as a climate controlled storage location for 18thand 19thcentury records
• Opened 1950’s era fireproof safe and re-purposed it to store town’s oldest records
• Purchased a hygrometer to begin to monitor humidity levels and possibly make case for off-site storage

Off-site professional development

• Represented Hanover at three statewide Massachusetts Town Clerk’s Association conferences this past year –Falmouth, Springfield and Devens
• Attended educational seminars and other continuing education programs, thereby earning credits toward Certified Massachusetts Municipal Clerk and Certified Municipal Clerk status while there
• Attended Tri-County Clerk’s Association training sessions