HARDWICK — After 41 years as Town Clerk, Paula L. Roberts will retire next month.
Roberts told the Board of Selectmen at Monday’s meeting about her departure, and that her last day on the job will be June 30.
The clerk’s position here is elected. Her current three-year term in office expires in April 2020. Selectmen can appoint someone to fill the vacancy, which would be in effect until next year’s municipal election.
“I’ll miss it, and it was great to have this job all these years,” Roberts told The Republican.
She the biggest change over the years is the decrease in time to count ballots, which used to be by hand, taking up to six hours, but with modern technology, unofficial results are known in five minutes.
“Registering to vote is a lot easier now — before, there was a date and a time when you could register” at the office, and, she said, fishing and hunting licenses, previously, were purchased from municipal clerks.
Roberts is on the board of directors of The Friends of the Stone Church, a community group organized in 2015 to preserve and protect the historic 1872 Stone Church.