by Carlene Phillips ·
Friday, August 30, 2024
The new assistant town clerk, Nicole Levay-O’Brien, was hired two weeks ago, and having held a similar job for two years in Hopkinton, she told the Press she has “hit the ground running.”
She said the tasks of the town clerk’s office are similar from one municipality to the other. “It’s just getting used to how this town does things here.” There’s a lot to keep on top of, said Levay-O’Brien. “Who knew you need to register an underground diesel fuel storage?” She added, “Once you’re in the groove you stay there. But you have to get in it.”
Nicole Levay-O’Brien. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)
The clerk’s office is the central information point for the public as well as other departments, boards, and committees. There are lots of stakeholders, said Levay-O’Brien: “We serve them all. We educate people and work to facilitate things. There’s a lot of triaging.”
Levay-O’Brien said she made the job change in part to have a better work-life balance. Hopkinton is a town of 18,000, of whom 13,000 are voters. “It was not mentally sustainable for me,” she said. A less hectic pace would also give her the opportunity to work on some larger issues, like creating safety plans or writing grants, and to focus on the educational and communication aspects of the job, which were the core of her graduate degree.
Harvard is a good place to work, and it has a lot of equity, she said. Town Clerk Rose Miranda is already giving her a lot of responsibilities, “not grunt work.” “We’re in a unique spot—sitting 10 feet apart—and we both know what needs to be done.”
In 2020, Levay- O’Brien was working at Channel 7 as a news technician. She said it was frustrating to listen day after day to press conferences where policies were discussed that didn’t make sense to her and not be in a position to effect any change. She left to go to graduate school for a master’s degree in public administration so she could work in positions where she could create policy change. “In a municipal office you can effect change.”
Levay-O’Brien grew up in Marlborough and after first experiencing town meeting in her work, she sees it as the purest form of democracy. “Rose and I could effect change in the way things are run,” she said. They have no plans yet, but there are also changes like structuring dog license fees or clarifying the citizen petition process that could make things easier and fairer for residents.
Election season is the busiest time for the town clerk’s office and one of the aspects of the job Levay-O’Brien finds most interesting. At the start of the conversation with the Press, she was sealing an envelope with an absentee ballot for the November election to go to Taipei, Taiwan. She said the regulations around different kinds of ballots can be confusing. For example, a student who never lived here but whose parents do may claim the Harvard address for an absentee ballot. “It’s a lot to remember,” she said.
While Levay-O’Brien has taken on plenty of responsibilities, with just two weeks on the job and elections around the corner, she said, “I’m glad Rose is in charge. I’m not ready yet.”