Re-elect O’Connell county clerk

While it might be easy to overlook the office of county clerk, the office plays an important role in keeping Nassau County’s court cases and real estate humming. They hum now, at least, and that’s in large part the work of County Clerk Maureen O’Connell, who has earned the Herald’s endorsement.

O’Connell, a Republican former state assemblywoman, has held the position for one term, since she was elected in 2005. She inherited the job from former Clerk Karen Murphy, along with a backlog of more than 2 million court and real estate documents. O’Connell dived head-first into that mountain of paperwork with her staff, and emerged a year later with an office that turns documents around in hours rather than months. The fact that they are in most cases processed in “real time,” as O’Connell puts it, is evidence that she has the chops to continue doing her job and to keep her head above water in a still difficult situation.

In a world increasingly dependent on technology as the keeper of government documents, the clerk’s office needs to make a jump into the 21st century. Many federal court cases are already paperless, and local court cases should move in that direction. O’Connell has used the government’s e-filing system to create a database of some 25,000 court cases. It’s a trend she plans to continue by bringing still more cases into the electronic realm, practically as fast as she can, and as fast as the government’s e-filing system can keep up.

Challenger Carrie Solages has shown himself to be a charismatic politician, and has made an energetic and aggressive bid for the office. The points he makes are good ones: We should elect men and women who are forward-thinking people willing to take on big challenges and change our government for the better.

When an office has found a rhythm, however — making steady adjustments to bring it up to date — an abrupt change can do as much harm as good. O’Connell has proven that she is a leader willing to do the work to make significant changes that the clerk’s office strongly resisted for many years. Her efforts to improve the connection between the office and the courts it serves, as well as the monumental task of catching up on years of paperwork, have earned her another four years.

In 2005, turning the county clerk’s office into a useful and well-oiled arm of the government seemed like an impossible task. O’Connell has shown us that she can do the job. There is still work to be done, so let’s give her another term, and the opportunity to finish what she started.