Janice Bates: Striving for Excellence

Janice Bates is the Executive Assistant to City Manager Eric Mack and Clerk of Council for the Tipp City Council, but she’s also a life-long learner and teacher. “I never stop learning, I continue going to classes, I just love it! And I like teaching; I like it a lot. To share some of the information I’ve learned and know…that makes me happy.”

After graduating from Wright State University with a Fine Arts degree in Art and Art History, with a concentration in photography, she considered opening her own studio. But she worked for 10 years at the Ohio Institute of Photography and Technology, which eventually became Kaplan College. She was Assistant to the President while teaching general education, art history, history of photography, student success, career development, and other courses.

When Kaplan began reducing its workforce, a friend told her about a job opening in Tipp City, saying, “These are your people.” Although Janice heard that a large number of people applied for the job, she was hired after interviewing with the city manager and his staff, and council members. Her title was, and is, Executive Assistant to the City Manager and Clerk of Council. Janice comments, “People don’t go to school to become a Municipal Clerk, it just kind of happens.”

However, Janice has made sure she’s up for the job by joining the Ohio Municipal Clerks Association (OMCA) and the International Institute of Municipal Clerks (IIMC). Using their resources, she has taken classes in professional development and gone to one-day classes, week-long classes, and conferences to learn how to deal with public records, record retention, time management, and many other clerical topics. She has also served on the OMCA Board and was Board President in 2018 and 2019. She was the Regional Director of the IIMC, which included Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee, for three years, won the election for Vice President of the IIMC Board, and will become Board President in 2027.

She says, “I facilitate lots of teaching for many state associations. Sometimes I think I should start a consulting company to help clerks learn their role. When we’re hired, we don’t know what we’re doing, necessarily. So, it would be helpful for municipalities to have some kind of consultant, on call, to help a clerk learn what she needs to do, just to get her started, because there’s really not a mechanism for that.” 

Janice explains, “I’m the historian for the city. All records and the responsibility for their storage come through me, along with requests for pulling records from storage. All council legislation and minutes must be approved by the council president and me, after approval by council. And then I put it in storage, and it also goes online to the city website.”

But Janice admits she does not like filing or writing minutes. “Just ask any clerk”, she suggests. Her favorite role is interacting with council, staff, and the general public. 

I asked Janice what her greatest stress was, and she replied, “Timeliness! Getting agendas out on time. Sometimes department heads want another day or half-day to submit their reports.” But she adds, “We all have a common goal, what’s best for the city!”

On a personal level, Janice has two daughters, both married, one living in Akron and one in North Carolina.

Although she didn’t admit it, I think Janice is proud of the fact that people say, and sometimes joke, “If you don’t know something, go to Janice”.