The following student report was submitted by Ambassador League Agent Grace H. during the 2008-2009 League.
Mission: Observe - Shadow a Local Leader
On March 4th I job shadowed Diane Mosier, DeWitt Township Clerk. It was a great experience in which I learned more about local government than ever before. Everyone was very welcoming and excited that I was there. I got multiple comments about the importance of youth being involved in the political world. I was shocked at all the jobs to be done every day that no one even thinks about.
First Mrs. Mosier took me on a tour of the building. There are three wings, each with three different offices in them. The south wing holds the Treasurer's, the Clerk’s and the Manager’s office. The Treasurer handles all the local bills and taxes. Their job brings in the money. The Clerk handles most of the spending on upkeep at parks, for elections, and all public facilities. The Manager makes sure each office is doing their job and takes the place of the Supervisor when he is gone.
The west wing holds the Planning, Building, and Assessing offices. These offices' combined job is to make sure the community is numbered and accounted for. Planning keeps the town neat by staying within its future plans for that area and not just letting people build wherever they want. It keeps roads, neighborhoods and businesses in an orderly fashion. Building makes sure every structure in the township is safe and up to par with the newest rules and regulations. They are the ones who send out inspectors when you want to build or demolish something. Assessing keeps records and diagrams of every single land plot and building in the township. Every year they update the value of land and buildings according to location, inflation, and improvements and then decide what the tax will be for each one. They showed me a picture and diagram of our house and had the number of rooms and every other bit of information.
Finally the north/east wing holds the Police, Fire and Janitorial offices. We only visited the Police office due to time but I got to see some statistics of last year’s crime rates and accident percentages. It was really interesting seeing the differences from year to year and listening to the Police Chief explain the reasons. Each office mentioned repeatedly that without one office all the others would be less effective and how nothing gets accomplished but through a team effort. There was a minimum of two employees or elected officials working in each office, one in charge, and one as either a deputy or an assistant. Each office is a necessity to everyday life in DeWitt Township as we know it, so don’t take your local government for granted.
After my tour, the Deputy Clerk, Judy Martini showed me how to keep voting records while Diane went to type up minutes from the last board meeting. Each person who is registered to vote has a file in the Clerk's office, both on the computer and in a huge file cabinet. The records are updated every day according to changes, like when people move, change their name or even die. About ten of these changes are received from the Secretary of State and dealt with every morning. Each file must have a signature to allow the person to vote. Mrs. Martini brought up my parent's records and showed how they both have their signatures on the computer. Although this is a very important task of the Clerk's office, they have numerous other jobs to accomplish each day. One of their biggest jobs is to orchestrate all local elections. This takes a lot of time and work.
Over all, my job shadow opportunity was a great experience and I learned a lot. It gave me a better understanding of all the necessary jobs that no one really thinks about. From this staff's hard work and influence, DeWitt is a safe, small, neat and beautiful little town that residents enjoy very much. o thank you everyone involved in local government, spending your time to improve America.
