Township Clerk Kathleen Wisniewski Set To Retire

This year when the calendar page flips from June to July it'll mark a big change for Springfield—the retirement of long-time Township Clerk Kathleen Wisniewski.

Wisniewski has worked for the township for 32 years beginning in the building department as a clerical employee. From there she went into the tax collectors office where she was a certified tax collector. She took over as the Deputy Township Clerk in 1985 and when Helen Keyworth retired in 1998 became clerk. 

The Township's Administrator's Assistant Linda Donnelly will become Town Clerk when Wisniewski steps down.

Back when she first started out there were no computers. She told Patch, "I had a monster bookkeeping file in the tax collectors office, I had to type all the copies. If someone needed 15 copies of a report for a meeting, I used five carbons at a time—and made sure to not make any mistakes."

You would think that computers might have cut down on the amount of paper in the Township office but Wisniewski noted that "Actually the amount of paper has increased because with computers everyone needs their own hard copies."

At least that's cleaner than the mimeograph machine that she once used to run off copies. "I was covered with purple ink " she recalled. "Changes are for the better."

She is an accomplished Municipal Clerk, having been named 2004 NJ Clerk Of The Year, and is also a registered and certified master Municipal Clerk—a status that allows one to be a Municipal Clerk anywhere in the U.S.

Wisniewski has lived in Springfield since 1964. A cousin living here asked her to check out a neighboring house. She said "That place turned out to be perfect for a newlywed, not too big, not too small." She and husband Stanley continued to live in town for 46 years until he passed away in 2003.

Her son Thomas, who was recently honored by the Rec Department for coaching Minuteman Basketball, lives here with his wife, Diane and eleven-year-old son A.J. Another son, Paul (a chef and photographer) also lives in town. Daughter Karen, lives in Andover with her husband David and fifteen-year-old Erin and eleven-year-old Keith.

Looking back over her tenure, Wisniewski said that the job was never dull and always evolving,  "I needed to acclimate to new people every year, elections were very interesting. " 

One of her favorite accomplishments was the well-received Township journal published for in 1976 to commemorate the Bicentennial and again in 1994 and 2005. Working on those publications made her into an informal expert on the Township.

As Wisniewski put it " I have a lot of good memories of nice people. I'm proud of my co-workers in the past and present township office."