1/8 County Clerk Set To Retire After 18 Years

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By Caitlin Brown
FREEHOLD- Monmouth County has started 2015 with a loss to its operations with the announcement of M. Claire French’s resignation this spring after 18 years as County Clerk.
French, 77, says she is leaving what she considers to be “the best job in the world” after 35 years in government because she feels “it’s the right time”.
“I’ve done everything I set out to do while working in government,” French says. “I feel like I’ve improved every one of the offices I’ve held, and I’m satisfied with how I’m leaving things at this time.”
French is a Jersey Shore native, born in Point Pleasant Beach and a graduate of high school there. At age 19 she married Robert French and the two founded a construction business in 1958, formerly known as French Contracting Company and still successfully running to this day as Resource Engineering, Wall.
The couple raised two children in Wall Township: Doug French, now of Howell, and Sherry French-Habermann, of Wall Township. By the time her children were teenagers, the family had developed an interest in car racing, and became active at local speedway Wall Stadium. The family has now had three generations of racecar drivers at the track.
French had also become active, beginning in the 1960’s, in the Wall Township community, attending council and Board of Education meetings and volunteering for a variety of causes. She became a reporter at the Wall Herald, a weekly newspaper at the time.
“People weren’t informed; they didn’t know about or attend the town meetings, or even what the town or school issues were,” French says. “This was a major concern for me, as a mother of school-aged children, a local business owner, and a resident- that people become more informed and have more access to the politicians and community leaders, especially.”
This sentiment became French’s driving force into politics and a work motto that she carried into her first elected position as Wall Township mayor for two one-year terms, between 1983 and 1985.
After her terms as mayor ended, she was appointed by the Monmouth County Freeholders as the first-ever chairwoman of the Monmouth County Improvement Authority, based on her well-established dedication to improving community relations and services to the public.
French held this position from 1986 to 1996, while also serving in other levels of government, including the NJ Job Training Council, followed by an appointment by Gov. Christine Todd Whitman to the Finance Board.
“At this point in my career, I have served in every level of the government- local, regional, county, and state,” French says with pride.
French’s work can be said, with certainty, to have shaped Monmouth County and New Jersey’s governments over the last few decades by helping to create the subsidized interest loan program still in place in the county to this day.
French is also credited with pioneering electronic recording technology for Monmouth County while serving as county clerk. The clerk’s position typically handles all record-keeping, including county property records of mortgages, land title deeds, liens, and other invaluable documents. Known as Portal Technology, French’s award-winning system is now used in all 13 counties in New Jersey and has vastly improved record-keeping in the state’s governments.
French speaks with authority when she says that one person can make a difference in their community, and it is what she says she will miss most when she leaves the position, scheduled tentatively for March 1.
“Every day, I had the satisfaction of helping citizens and making a difference in any way that I could. I call it the best job in the world because I had the opportunity to help someone understand their government better, and have access to information and resources they need,” French says.
“I’ve met so many people in this job, and the one thread that runs through it all is that people in this country are so proud of their own town. Every community, every town, thinks that their town is the best, and that is something very satisfying to see as the county clerk,” French says.
One memory French would like to forget is the recent election night issues Monmouth County experienced, due to what French calls “human error”.
On Nov. 4, new computerized equipment failed, leaving the county without final vote tallies as towns rushed to then deliver cartridges to the clerk’s office that had recorded all the votes, which then needed to be counted by over 50 municipal clerks. According to French, one of the four updated computers did not have the former program removed by the installation technician before the new program was installed, causing a malfunction to occur.
“I don’t want to cloud the beauty of our election system in Monmouth County and how it works,” French says adamantly. “We spent over $200,000 for updated election equipment, and all 53 towns in the county were given cartridges that could be linked to the Internet, so that the votes could be tallied in real time.”
After retirement, French says she plans on attending Brookdale Community College to take government courses. She explains how she never had time to finish her college credits, and she is now excited to have the opportunity to finish her college degree.
French’s fourth five-year term as clerk is scheduled to end in 2017, leaving the responsibility to Monmouth County Chairman Shaun Golden to pick her replacement.
Her son, Doug, described French and her career in politics.
“Years ago, a freeholder approached me at an event and said that the one thing about [French] is that she has no real enemies. In politics, to be well-liked by mostly everyone you know is a very rare trait.”