Around the City
By Jayne Farrin
Since 1969, Municipal Clerks Week has been held the first full week of May. The dates for this year were May 3 through May 9, 2015. Unfortunately I didn’t have this article ready to be published during that week, but I want to introduce you to your clerks at the Caribou City Office.
When you come into the main room on the first floor, you will find Constance “Connie” Michaud. She has been a constant fixture in this position by the big window since April 1986. How many of you remember anyone else sitting there? Connie is the Motor Vehicle Agent and, as such, she is the go-to person for all things motor vehicle.
Kalen and I often wonder how she can stand to do all those registrations. Connie is calm even when there is a line, as she says she focuses only on the customer in front of her.
Like many, she was the daughter of a potato farmer. She was born and raised in Presque Isle and graduated from Presque Isle High School. Currently her brother lives on the family homestead. She moved to Caribou following her marriage to Gerald L. Michaud, and here they raised their children.
Connie is very involved with her church. Connie is a member of the Aroostook Birders and she tells me that she “sort of” keeps a list of birds that she has seen. She does see a few birds at her position in front of the big window. I started this article in February, and just yesterday she saw a Bohemian waxwing. Connie is a genealogist and has a Maine-issued genealogical research ID card.
The Deputy City Clerk is Kalen Hill, and she has been with the City since April 2010. She started in municipal government in 2007 when she went to work for the Town of Van Buren. Kalen was Van Buren’s Registrar of Voters and the sewer department’s billing clerk. She came to Caribou completely trained in all areas of Trio, which is the City’s municipal software program, plus she had attended many municipal clerk classes.
Since working for the City, she has completed the necessary classes and in the spring of 2015 passed the test to become a Certified Clerk of Maine. Not all Maine clerks obtain this certification, but Caribou’s Deputy City Clerk has. Congratulations, Kalen, for all your hard work and dedication in obtaining this certification.
Kalen also lived the life of a daughter on a potato farm, a Belanger on the Belanger Road. She was the youngest of five and currently has two sisters and a brother in the Caribou area. After graduating from Caribou High School, she worked in the area until she followed her “fly boy” Ernie Hill to Colorado. For 30 years, they lived and worked there with traveling being a major part of that life. Kalen and Ernie rode Harleys all over the western section of the U.S.
In 2007, they returned to Caribou and were able to purchase the home that she grew up in. So Kalen has come full circle. Those Aroostook County roots pulled her back to where she belongs.
I started working in February 2007 as Deputy City Clerk under the direction of then City Clerk Judy-Ann Corrow. Upon her retirement in 2010, I was fortunate enough to be sworn in as City Clerk.
Since then, I have become a Certified Clerk of Maine and am working on my Certified Municipal Clerk designation through the International Institute of Municipal Clerks. In July, I will graduate from the New England Municipal Clerk Institute, which is a three-year program held at Plymouth University in New Hampshire. For each of the three years, I have applied for and received scholarship monies to cover the total cost of the Institute.
My first adventure in municipal government was in 1982 when, at the age of 27, I was hired by the Town of Exeter (population 823) as their town manager. In 1987, I became the town manager of Milo and then moved to Aroostook County in 1991 to serve as Van Buren’s town manager. I loved Van Buren but left there to marry and raise our two sons. In total I have more than 19 years of municipal government experience.
I am a native of Maine, but not of Aroostook County, so I will probably always be “from away.” I grew up in Harmony, which is in the heart of central Maine.
This past April, my husband, Steve Freeman, retired from the Presque Isle Utilities District, and in the fall we will have both boys in college, and I will be here serving the people of Caribou and enjoying every moment of that.
