New city clerk enters role with energy, organization

WASHINGTON — One of the first orders of business for Amanda Waugh, upon her appointment as Washington’s new city clerk, was to read the municipal code of ordinances.

She did so, from cover to cover.

All 170 chapters.

The document is hundreds, if not thousands of pages long. As a “fast reader,” in her words, she completed it in a few days.

“I’m used to looking that up, in my previous job working for an attorney,” Waugh said. “It really is kind of interesting to me how each city is different, how they each do their citations, how you can work the code … under Iowa law, but make it your own.”

A marketing executive turned financial adviser turned legal assistant turned city clerk, Waugh’s experience is as diverse as her latest position’s to-do list.

During her first two weeks on the job, she’s spent time as an invoice processor, phone receptionist, mail sorter, and public record note-taker, among other things. Other duties to come include grant application writing, approving liquor and food vendor licenses, and (almost certainly,) several others.

No two days are the same. Some have 8 a.m. staff meetings. Others have city council sessions lasting until 8 p.m. Most have schedules that must adapt and shift as the minutes go by.

Thus far, she feels right at home.

“I’m enjoying it, very much,” Waugh said. “I learn something every day, whether it’s using the resources that are out there, or something comes up that I need to be trained how to do, so it’s great.”

That’s not to say the gig was easy to get. Mayor Pro Tem Millie Youngquist said Waugh was chosen from a list of 22 applicants. The process involved several stages of interviews, all of them with several municipal officials at once.

Waugh said the experience was “intimidating.”

“You had the city admin, finance, you had the chief of police, the mayor, at least two or three others, both times,” she said. “They had all these questions, and they just went around the table … I was just like, ‘Wow, that was a lot.’ Interviewing with one or two people, I have done before. Interviewing with a whole room full of people (was) completely different.”

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Details are Waugh’s strong suit. The newest city hall staff member said she’d seen paperwork snafus in the past that threatened to close entire schools.

She herself has a thing for color-coded organization, from closet contents to written conversations.

“Drafting has a certain color of pen … and then your completion is a different color,” she said. “My closet’s very color-coordinated and organized, without making it sound too crazy … and calendar-wise, it’s easier to assign somebody a color so everybody knows where you needed to be, what you had going on.”

Such meticulousness was what led some friends to recommend that she apply for Washington’s clerk opening. It also makes Waugh highly competitive at Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, game shows she watches with close friends, and gets fired up over the same way they do over live Hawkeye football and basketball.

The group calls themselves The First Wives Club, after the 1996 comedy of the same name. Their gatherings represent the only time Waugh "can manage to sit still,“ but are not for the faint of heart.

“We’re very competitive,” she said, regarding the group’s conduct during game show nights. “We involved another friend’s husband (and) he got kicked out.”

An Iowan through and through, Waugh grew up in Hedrick, graduated with a degree in marketing from Simpson College, and returned to Southeast Iowa, working a handful of jobs in Ottumwa and eventually Iowa City over the last several years.

And in Southeast Iowa she remains.

“I like small communities and getting more involved … the camaraderie, the community can be nice,” she said. “Most of my friends, family and support group has been here. I grew up around Southeast Iowa. I’ve lived in Des Moines, Norwalk, thought I’d always be a city girl and then I came home, and decided maybe I’m not.”

As she settles into the new line of work, Waugh said she was excited about the future. While the job takes long hours and near endless effort, she said she felt like a perfect fit.

“I’m constantly making notes, there’s just so many different aspects,” she said. “I’ve literally been this way since I was born, little sleep and always on the go.“

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com