'How Can We Serve You Today?'

This is the motto of the Manchester Office of Town Clerk. If you ever visited the office you’ve seen this service model in action. Joseph V.  Camposeo, Town Clerk since 1996, and his staff practice it on a daily basis. The Office of Town Clerk is one of those low profile departments that quietly goes about it’s business efficiently, effectively and with civility every day (if only every government bureau could be that way!). The Clerk's Office is the custodian of Manchester’s public records, keeping track of marriage licenses, birth certificates, land records, dog licenses, town ordinances, election results, minutes of meetings and many other records. Deeds in the Clerk’s vaults go back to 1823.

Camposeo is featured on Manchester Review in December. Although he's been on the job for 16 years, he still exudes enthusiasm and passion when he describes his work and talks about trends in record keeping. Current challenges are FOI laws, privacy, and security issues along with keeping up with technology and gradually moving to a paperless record keeping system.  

Camposeo also talks about whether the Clerk’s position should be elected or appointed, always a hotbutton issue in town. 

Camposeo has been in elected office in Manchester since 1976. He served on the Board of Education, the Board of Directors and for the past 16 years as Town Clerk. His elections for Town Clerk have been mostly unchallenged.  

Manchester Review can be seen Monday nights in December at 9 p.m., Cox PATV, channel 15. Tune in to get a record setting lesson from a role model in public service.

What is your view: should the Town Clerk be elected or appointed?