Description

The Connecticut State Statutes govern the many responsibilities of the Town Clerk. The Town Clerk’s Office is the major records repository for the Town of New Fairfield which includes documents ranging from land records to vital records. The office indexes and scans all land records and maintains the New Fairfield Town Clerk maps. The Town Clerk also functions as the Registrar of Vital Statistics. The office provides certified copes of records ranging from birth certificates to land records.

In addition, this office issues and maintains a variety of licenses such as marriage, sporting licenses and dog licenses. The Town Clerk also plays a major role in elections, primaries, and referendums, which include certifying election results, and the absentee ballot program.

Additionally, all the official business of the Town is kept in this office.  An added obligation of the Town Clerk is to act as the guardian of the Town Seal, affixing it only to proper and valid municipal documents.

The Town Clerk’s mission is to efficiently maintain all land records, maps, trade names, vital records, military discharges, and minutes of all board and commission meetings.

Accomplishments

During the past few years the Town Clerk’s office has made many upgrades to better serve the public. Through historic preservation grants and a 2016 capital improvement project we were able to complete the indexing and scanning of all of our land records.  This enables the public to view and print their land record indexes and images from our search computers beginning in October 1761.

In March 2020, we contracted with our vendor to have our land record indexes and images put online for access when our offices were closed due to COVID-19.  Due to the positive response, we decided to leave access to our records online.  We are also redacting sensitive data elements from our online records.

Historic preservation grants have also been used by our office to compile board and commission minutes, agendas and regulations in convenient volumes on archival paper.  These volumes have also been microfilmed for historic preservation.  This allows the public the capability of searching for information in an easy format in one location.

Historic preservation grants have also been used to conserve and preserve our oldest town journals, vital records and veterans’ discharges.  We also purchased new fireproof cabinets to store our election and historic information.

Prior to becoming New Fairfield’s Town Clerk I attended classes and received certification as a Connecticut Town Clerk.  My full-time assistant is currently working toward her certification.  My staff and I attend classes to remain up to date on new changes to our office duties.  We work to fulfill the needs of the taxpayers of the Town to the best of our abilities.