Recorder of the Year

Anna Ruggles, CMC, City of Forest Grove

2017 Recorder of the Year

The Oregon Association of Municipal Recorders (OAMR) presented Forest Grove City Recorder Anna Ruggles, CMC, with the 2017 City Recorder of the Year award. Anna received the award at the association’s Annual Conference banquet held at  the  Best Western Agate Beach Inn in Newport, Oregon, on September 22, 2017.

OAMR is a professional organization dedicated to promoting governmen-tal relationships and providing educational and training opportunities for over 200 Oregon city recorders statewide. The guidelines for Recorder of the Year state that any OAMR member, City  Manager,  or  Mayor  may   submit   a   confidential nomination to acknowledge recorders and recognize their excellence  and  professional  accomplishments.  The  nominee must have made an outstanding contribution or performed outstanding service to OAMR, to the profession of Municipal Recorder,  or  to  an  individual  city  during  the  association's fiscal year. This award recognizes outstanding service and performance over and  above  the  person’s  job  description. Some possible strengths might include areas such as Public Relations, Records Management, Legislative  or  Council Procedures, or even a special project.

Anna has worked for the City of Forest Grove for 15 years and received rave reviews for all her hard work on behalf of the City.
Below are excerpts from the nomination letters:
Anna handles all public meeting requirements for her seven member Council that meets twice a month and has
augmented her City’s reputation for transparency and public integrity. She also coordinates the sister city visits to and from Nyuzen, Japan.

This past year after recognizing that portions of the City Code were duplicative, inconsistent, and outdated Anna initiated a massive effort to update, streamline, and re-codify the City’s Code. She also worked on the passage of several ordinances from exclusion ordinances to marijuana. She worked with the City Attorney and staff to assure the Code was well written, documented, and recorded properly.

Anna developed a comprehensive, informative, and concise Council orientation packet. In addition, she organized training sessions for her Council that included legislative, quasi-judicial, and administrative procedures coupled with ethics law and conflicts of interest. She has worked on Council procedures and while some of those issues were controversial she brought patience, expertise, and integrity to the process; helping to inform the debate, sharpen the interpretation, and facilitate a solution.