A Conversation with Hinesburg Town Clerk and Treasurer Heather Roberts
Heather Roberts sits down to discuss all she’s learned and loved during her unexpected career in town government.
By Anna Gilmore
Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont internship, for The Hinesburg Record
It’s a busy time of year for Heather Roberts, Hinesburg town clerk and treasurer. In this conversation Roberts talks about preparations for the upcoming March 3 town elections and what she likes about a job that some view as being the face of the town.
Roberts found her way to Town Hall when she was working part-time next door as a Sunday school coordinator. She heard about a job opening to be assistant town clerk and treasurer and worked in that role for three years before being elected town clerk and treasurer in 2023. She earned her bachelor’s degree at Williams College and a master’s in library science at Simmons College. After working at the libraries of financial companies in New York and Boston, Roberts moved to Vermont with her husband in 2005. She has three children and two yellow Labs named Gibson and Olive.
Q: What is the town clerk’s role when it comes to elections?
A. We’re responsible for conducting all of the elections, local, state and federal. That isn’t a consistent workflow, but when it’s happening, it really eats up a lot of our time. We get a pretty big volume of ballots that are coming in early, and we just track what has come. They don’t actually get fed into the tabulator until the day of the election.
Q. Can you explain what the upcoming election is determining?
A. So there are officers up for election, including selectboard. I’m up for re-election as town clerk and treasurer. Every year we elect a moderator, and then there’s a rotating slate of people for positions including library trustee, for Peck Estate trustee, and for cemetery commission.
And we also have on the ballot the Hinesburg representative to the [Champlain Valley School District] school board, who is up for election this year.
Q. What is your job on election day?
A. To be out at the polls. My assistant and I both get there early. We make sure that the tabulators are up and running. We have all the materials ready for all of our poll workers. And I also help anyone who is registering to vote that day because Vermont has same day voter registration.
Q. What’s your strategy for navigating all the protocols you have to follow?
A. I mean, it’s a lot, but I was the assistant town clerk for three years and I’ve been the clerk for three years now. So I’ve been through several elections. I feel like I’m more aware of the pitfalls.
Q. Has your background in archival work been helpful in this career?
A. I do feel like my background in library science is helpful, particularly from the clerk perspective and the thinking of the land records and the vault as kind of an archive. So you just never know how your skill sets are going to plug into something new.
Q. Do you get to spend a lot of time directly with people in the community?
A. People come into the office all day long for various things. They need a marriage license or they need to pay their water bill or pay their taxes. I think that the clerk’s office is in many ways the face of the town government. It’s where people come first. And then if it’s not us [they need], we send them to someone else.
Q. What’s the most rewarding part of your job?
A. When I worked in Boston and New York, I was doing reference and research work for, most of the time, the investment professionals that the library supported. And so I’ve always felt that was the most rewarding thing: helping people to find something that they wouldn’t know how to find on their own. I guess I just have always liked that customer service aspect and the ability to see lots of people and make their lives a little easier.
Q. What do you like to do in your free time?
A. What free time?
I serve on some boards. I’m on the library board, I’m on the Peck Estate trustees and there’s my part-time job running a Sunday school. I’m also on the board at church, so I spend a lot of time doing, you know, civic responsibilities. But aside from that, I really like gardening and just being outside. My family has two yellow Labs and I love to take them for walks in the woods.