Philomath’s longtime city recorder transitions into retirement

Over a 22-year run as Philomath’s city recorder, Ruth Post experienced the inner workings of a tight-knit mid-Willamette Valley community that grew by nearly 40%. The primary duties of the job involved managing the city’s official records, overseeing local elections and facilitating meetings.

Post, 62, retired in mid-November with Crystal Weber now in the position.

During her time on the job, Post has worked with 36 city councilors and six mayors — Van Hunsaker, Chris Nusbaum, Ken Schaudt, Rocky Sloan, Eric Niemann and Chas Jones.

Post started working for the city as the utility billing clerk in January 1999 while looking for a job closer to home. Her mother, Joy Maddux, had passed away the previous summer and her husband, Henry, was working a fair distance from home in Lyons.

“It was great because it did away with an hour of commuting each way,” Post said, who was driving to Salem for her previous job with the State Accident Insurance Fund. “And we had girls (Kathy and Samantha) in middle school and I wanted to be closer to them.”

Post later added court clerk duties to her responsibilities before landing the city recorder job during the summer of 2002. The previous city recorder, Terri Phillips, left for a similar position at Hood River.

“I had been backing her up a lot and so I decided to go ahead and apply for it,” Post recalled. “I did have to compete for it — I was interviewed by three of the council and by (City Manager) Randy Kugler.”

Post, who graduated with Philomath High’s Class of 1980, said the job of city recorder is a balancing act that is often unique to the community in which they work.

“I don’t think you’ll find two city recorders in the state who do the same things,” Post said. “There are primary things that every city recorder pretty much does, which is records management, elections and meeting management, but then there are the other things that just get tacked on or worked into the job.”

Post said many of those types of responsibilities are natural extensions of the job, such as overseeing the website, communications and social media. However, there were a few other areas that she covered that could be called rare.

“Building permits, planning and city recorder were all part of the job when I came in. There were times when one took a lot more time than another,” she laughed.

Post was very active with various organizations that aligned with her career.

“I was very blessed that Randy Kugler supported me in the Oregon Association of Municipal Recorders and my goal to be president of that organization,” she said. “It involved several years of working up to that but it was a great experience, great networking, and I just developed some amazing, lifelong friends from all over the state.”

Post served as the OAMR’s president in 2009-10.

In more recent years, she’s been involved at a high level with an international group.

“(City Manager) Chris (Workman) was again supportive of me taking another step and that was becoming more involved in the International Institute of Municipal Clerks at the global level, really, and serving on the board there,” said Post, who first joined the board in 2021. “Again, it was just an amazing experience.”

Speaking at her home Dec. 12 in Philomath with holiday music softly playing in the background, Post was asked to end the interview by sharing a favorite story from her years as city recorder. She starts to laugh while thinking about Jim Minard, the late longtime city planner.

“He was a rabid Ducks fan and every year, he wanted to do a Civil War bet. We gave in one year and told him the winner was supposed to dress in the other team’s gear. And we told him, ‘we’re not going out and buying Duck gear if we lose this bet, we’re not.’ And he goes, ‘no worries, I’ve got enough for everybody.’

“That was when the game was typically on Thanksgiving weekend and on Monday morning, I pulled up on 10th Street to Applegate and looked across the street and, oh, gosh, all the trees and everything were decorated with Duck gear, pom-poms, sweatshirts, hats, everything. And everybody who arrived at work that morning got that view. Jim had gotten there early to do it all and he invited us all to go out and pick our gear off of a bush.

“We got dressed — the entire City Hall staff and Shelley (Bartlow) from the police department and he was like, ‘OK, now we’re going to do a picture.’”

As Post explained, prior to the photo, Bartlow had gone around to each person and written a letter on each person’s hand to spell out, “S-U-C-K-S.” With Minard kneeling in front of the group and facing the camera to enjoy the moment, the five individuals behind him raised their hands.

“And he goes, ‘OK, that was great, I’m going to put that on my screensaver,” Post said. “We all kind of felt a little guilty and told him, ‘Maybe you should look at it first.’ But he put that on as his screensaver until his last day of work. He loved it. He thought it was funny.”

A close second was the time Post was in the middle of a City Council meeting when she received a text from her husband that their dog had been sprayed by a skunk and he didn’t know what to do. The dog was able to get back into the house.

“The entire house just reeked of skunk and it was awful,” she recalled. “I should have just stayed at City Hall for the night.”

The city hosted a well-attended retirement party for Post on Nov. 13 at Philomath Museum.

“I thought it was really well done and I appreciated it,” she said. “I really appreciated everybody that showed up.”

During the event, Workman entertained those in attendance and had Post laughing in her seat with a retirement song that he had created through the help of an artificial intelligence music generator.

The chorus:

“With motions and amendments, and amendments to motions,

“And amendments to amendments and motions on amendments, 

“And agendas and minutes, and amendments to minutes, 

“Sometimes these meetings just suck!”

Post no longer needs to attend meetings — she took minutes at hundreds of them over the years — and looks forward to the next chapter in life.

“Henry retired in June and he’s been patiently waiting for me to wrap things up,” she said. “We like to hike and camp and travel and we’ve got some trips planned — some family, some going to visit clerks that I’ve met on my travels.”