Q&A: Beverly Hills City Clerk Byron Pope

With its mission defined as "ensuring that the city's legislative process is open and public," the Beverly Hills City Clerk's office—with a total of five employees—has been tasked with a number of important responsibilities. Patch sat down with City Clerk Byron Pope, who has held the position since 2005, to learn more about his office and its role in next year's city elections.

Beverly Hills Patch: What brought you to Beverly Hills?

Byron Pope: I met Mark Scott and Les Bronte in the 1990s when they came to my church to help feed the hungry. On Saturdays, Paradise Baptist Church in Los Angeles used to feed between 400 and 500 people on Skid Row. At the time, Scott was the city manager and told me about a couple of positions with the city. I applied and went to work for the Public Works Department as their commercial services manager.

Patch: How did you become city clerk?

Pope: I was approached in 2003 and asked if I was interested in joining the department as deputy city clerk. The city clerk at the time was Nina Webster, who was planning on retiring in a few years. So I took the job and obtained my certification in California over the next two years. I took my certification training without a guarantee that I would be named city clerk. I didn't know if the council would hire from within the department or search for an outside candidate. In 2005, right after the election, [Webster] retired and the council hired me as acting city clerk. I was acting city clerk from June until December 2005, before being hired full-time in January 2006.

Patch: What have been some of your biggest challenges since taking over as city clerk?

Pope: Since I've been city clerk, it's been a crucial time in government with the transition of the office. We have moved everything online. We had a lot of computers when I got here, but we weren't using them. We were still using index cards. We've also started putting the agendas online and recording the City Council meetings on our website after I arrived. It has been a really successful period for our office. We also gave up two positions in the budget over the last two years.

Patch: How has your office been affected by the benefit scandals in Bell?

Pope: The only fallout is the requests for public records and employee salary information have increased. All public records requests begin in my office. Our city has done really well in providing the information about our salaries. The city clerk is a discipline that is not paid at the level of the city attorney or city manager.*

Patch: What are the duties of the city clerk's office?

Pope: Our mission is simple and that is to ensure that the city's legislative processes are open and public. We also prepare and distribute the City Council's agenda, record the minutes, keep accurate records of all City Council actions and store the archives for the city. My office also provides legislative research and records retrieval for the city and the public. We also maintain candidate and employee financial disclosure forms. We have about 250 to 270 filers annually.

Patch: What is your role in conducting local elections?

Pope: As a general law city, my office administers every election. Currently, we are preparing our candidate handbook, which tells potential candidates how to qualify to run for office. We also have all candidates meet with representatives of my office for 30 to 60 minutes, so they are informed. The nomination process for next year's ballot will be held from Nov. 15 to Dec. 10. During that period of time all potential candidates have to collect at least 20, and up to 30, endorsement signatures from registered voters who live in Beverly Hills to qualify for the ballot. It's the law that a candidate needs to be endorsed by at least 20 residents. There are 20,919 registered voters in Beverly Hills, but that could change between now and March.

Patch: After the nomination period closes, what's next?

Pope: We have to verify all the candidates. The filing period closes at 5 p.m. on Dec. 10. In this cycle Mayor Jimmy Delshad and Councilwoman Nancy Krasne are up for re-election, which means if they don't file their papers by the deadline, the community would have five extra days for non-incumbent candidates to file. After that we would hire poll workers, get them trained for the election in March and set up precincts. We usually have 10 precincts throughout the city. That's followed by preparing a sample ballot that needs to be mailed before Feb. 7, which is the first day residents can mail in their ballots.

Patch: What is your role in G&L Realty's effort to place a two-hour free parking initiative on the ballot?

Pope: We have 30 days to verify the signatures once they turned in the initiative. The Los Angeles County Registrar Recorder's office in Norwalk is handling the verification. If I receive the results by [Oct. 13], I'll inform the City Council of their options at the Oct. 27 meeting. If they aren't returned by then, it will be at the Nov. 4 council meeting.

*Note: Pope's current contract has an annual base salary of $134,823.