At the meeting of November 7, the Town Council hosted Loxahatchee Groves’ City Clerk Lakisha Burch, who serves as the Southeast District Director of the Florida Association of City Clerks (FACC). She had come to the meeting to present Cherry Stowe, Orchid's Town Clerk, with a special designation as Certified Municipal Clerk. Ms. Stowe enrolled in the so-called CMC program in July 2016 and attained the special designation in May this year. She is only the second clerk in the Town’s history to earn this designation; the first was Maryann C. Harty in 1998.
Ms. Burch thanked the Town Council for giving Ms. Stowe the opportunity to succeed and presented her with a walnut plaque and a pin honoring the achievement. The Town's other guests, who had come to the meeting for this celebratory occasion, included Ms. Jeanette Williams of City of Sebastian and Ms. Tammy Bursick and Ms. Sherri Philo of City of Vero Beach. Ms. Laura Aldrich and Ms. Chelley Pallo of Indian River Shores were unable to attend at the last moment, but were certainly present in spirit.
The CMC program is administered by the International Institute of Municipal Clerks and involves attendance at extensive educational programs and requires experience pertinent to a municipal setting. The goal of the program is to enhance the job performance of the clerk in small and large municipalities, and to prepare clerks to meet the challenges of the complex role within local government. The CMC program has been assisting clerks to excel since 1970.
The FACC is a partner organization for Florida, whose membership exceeds 500 city, town and village clerks and deputy clerks. It has a mission to assist members in their daily duties by providing research, education and networking opportunities, and an educational vision that embraces the need for continual professional development and lifelong learning. Ms. Stowe has served on the FACC Legislative Committee since 2017.
Some of the courses Ms. Stowe completed include:
- Three FACC Fall Academies and two FACC summer conferences
- Minutes: Best Practices by Florida Association of City Clerks
- Records Management by the Florida Department of State’s Division of Library and Information Services
- Advertising Challenges for City Clerks by Florida Association of City Clerks
- Levels I, II and III of Accessible Documents for ADA Compliance by the John Scott Dailey Florida Institute of Government at Florida Atlantic University
- Hurricane Awareness from National Disaster Preparedness Training Center
- Community Hurricane Preparedness from FEMA
- Truth-in-Millage workshop by Florida Department of Revenue
- Public Records Summit: Ensuring Compliance and Avoiding Sunburn by Florida League of Cities
- Candidate Workshop by Indian River County Supervisor of Elections
- And many more...
Scholarships she received during the program:
- International Institute of Municipal Clerks’ Scholarship by the Robert T. Thorpe Scholarship Fund in 2017
- Kay O'Halloran Memorial Scholarship in 2018
- Jim Tinnin Online Learning Scholarship in 2019
