Thanks to Rhonda Pellin Gilroyans can obtain passports in Gilroy
and city keeps some of the proceeds
GILROY – The honor came totally as a surprise for Rhonda Pellin.
Gilroy’s city clerk was typing on her computer, taking the minutes of the Dec. 15 council meeting when Mayor Al Pinheiro said he wanted to add something to the agenda. Pellin was half listening when she heard her name proclaimed as Gilroy’s Employee of the Month.
“They announced it was me, and I said ‘huh?,’ ” she said, recalling the moment. “It was actually pretty surprising.”
This is the third time Pellin has been given the tribute. But the award is only just a token of the true respect she receives from staff and customers who come to City Hall, said her boss, City Administrator Jay Baksa.
“She just has a nice, professional drive to her where she has always tried to better herself in public service,” he said. “I think she contributes a stability and a friendliness to other city employees and customers.”
Baksa describes Pellin as someone who takes the initiative to try new programs – someone who “thinks outside the box.” And she is proactive in getting things done with a friendly attitude, he said.
“When people need something, they go to Rhonda,” Baksa said. “You get it without any hassle. She has a can-do attitude that she’ll dig and dig to get it. … She has been sort of the glue that holds everything together. She’s just as stable and solid as you can get.”
Pellin started working for the city of Gilroy in 1978 when she was hired as a Planning Department secretary. She worked in this position for 12 years. She was promoted to city administrator secretary and performed this job for seven years. She was promoted to city clerk in 1997.
The position requires her to perform various duties such as keeping the minutes at Council meetings and helping city employees and customers find the right documentation and the proper forms. She also sets the agenda for meetings and publicly posts agenda and notices as required by state law.
During elections, she works with Santa Clara County election officials in getting nomination papers properly filled out by the candidates. She also works with the county in setting up polling places.
She regularly attends city clerk conferences and also meets with Hollister, Morgan Hill and various other city clerks throughout the county to keep abreast of issues and changing laws.
She is in charge of all historic records for the city which goes back to the year 1870.
“Since I’ve become city clerk, we’ve got a scanning system so we can search electronically for information,” she says. “It only goes 10 years back.”
Occasionally, for research for various city departments, she does have to look up information from a hundred or more years ago. These searches are a lot of fun for her as she gets a connection with city clerks from Gilroy’s past in these documents.
“The old-fashioned script is so beautiful, but it gives you headaches reading it,” she said.
As well as these forays into the city’s past, Pellin likes to keep up with cutting-edge developments in technology that can help improve the process of local democratic government.
“In the last few months, we are Webcasting streaming video of our meetings,” she said. “You can see it live or watch old meetings. That will save us time in making videos for people.”
Another program recently started by Pellin is providing city residents with the convenience of going to City Hall to start the process of getting passports for international travel. No one else in Gilroy offered the service. Before its implementation, residents had to go to Hollister or Morgan Hill for the closest town with passport processing. Pellin has been averaging 25 passport applications each month at a cost of $85 each. The city gets to keep $30 of the fee.
Baksa nominated Pellin for Employee of the Month for December because she did such an excellent job researching and developing the new program.
“We just started in September as a passport processing facility,” she said.
She found the idea during an International city clerk conference held earlier this year. Someone gave her a video on what was involved in setting up the program where people bring in a photo and birth certificate and fill in the proper forms.
“I watched it and thought it was a good idea,” she said. “It’s actually a revenue producing venture. And it doesn’t take that much time from the other duties.”
Another program Pellin has been active in implementing for the city is the cleaning out of old records kept since 1960. The state sets legal requirements of when city clerks can destroy old records, so Pellin met with staff from various city departments and divisions and reviewed their procedures on when to get rid of certain types of documents. It also makes city government run more efficiently because records are easier to access.
“We spent the last five years working through this, and now we have a document that allows us to get rid of records or scan records that don’t need to be in paper form,” she said. “That allows us to free up storage space that we’re in dire need of.”
Pellin lives in Hollister with her husband Mike Pellin, a police officer with that city. They have two sons, Brian and Vincent Pellin. When she’s not working, she likes to cross-country ski, read and listen to music as well as play games on the computer. She also likes spending time in the family cabin in Sonora.
She’s already set her date for retirement: July 7, 2007 – which in numerals is 07-07-07.
“It’s a Saturday where my friend and I are going to be retiring together,” she said with a laugh.
Not that she hasn’t had fun working for the city of Gilroy.
“I love my job,” she said. “Every day is different. There’s always something new to do. I’m never finished. I can never twiddle my thumbs because there’s always something to do.”
