The clerk, the treasurer, the controller, the judge

1899 – today

The charter officers: Under the 1899 frame the city elected its mayor, its clerk, its treasurer and its marshal, and the clerk and treasurer began as separate offices held by separate men. The directory of 1921 shows them still separate — City Clerk Joseph DeLorenzi, City Treasurer Willis L. Kimball — and shows the administrative layer the growing city had added around them: City Controller Walter Michael, City Attorney Ralph H. Jernegan, City Engineer James L. Stephens, City Judge Ralph S. Feig, and a city electrician and a city sealer of weights and measures. DeLorenzi doubles in the directory as clerk of the Board of Public Works — the clerk's office was the government's paper memory even then.

The clerk-treasurer: By 1963 the two fiscal offices had become one. De Kever's account of that year's sweep lists among the offices the Republicans took "clerk-treasurer" — the combined elective office through which Indiana's smaller cities long ran their books. When the combination was made, no source read for this section dates; it stands in the gaps entry. The modern city elects a City Clerk again under that title: Deborah S. Block, named in the 2021 financial report's officials schedule, whose office still issues the council's notices in her name — a wastewater-rate hearing notice of September 2025 runs over her signature, with Raven S. Boston as chief deputy and Michael Hixenbaugh as deputy — and whose minutes sign her, as the Story of Mishawaka section notes, Debbie Ladyga-Block. Between DeLorenzi in 1921 and Block in the modern schedules, the succession of the clerk's office is not carried in the sources read; the gap is named, with the run of city financial reports that would fill it.

The controller and the judge: The controller's office is attested at both ends of its century — Walter Michael in 1921, Rebecca S. Maguire in the officials schedule of 2021 — and its course between those fixpoints is not in the sources read. The city judge appears in the record at the same two depths: Ralph S. Feig on the directory's 1921 roster (the directory text read for this section is an OCR transcription, and the surname is printed as it comes down), and the office itself in 1963, when De Kever lists the city judgeship among the posts the Prickett sweep carried. A government's minor offices are where its paperwork lives; this section prints what the record reaches of them and names the rest as open.

Sources:

1. R. L. Polk & Co., South Bend City Directory (1921) — Clerk Joseph DeLorenzi, Treasurer Willis L. Kimball, Controller Walter Michael, Attorney Ralph H. Jernegan, Engineer James L. Stephens, Judge Ralph S. Feig, and the clerk's second post as clerk of the Board of Public Works.
2. Peter J. De Kever, Mishawaka: A History — the "clerk-treasurer" and the city judgeship among the offices swept in 1963.
3. City of Mishawaka, Annual Financial Report (2021) — City Clerk Deborah S. Block; City Controller Rebecca S. Maguire.
4. Office of the City Clerk, notice of the Budget and Finance Committee's wastewater-rate informational meeting, 30 September 2025 (mishawaka.in.gov) — Deborah S. Block, City Clerk; Raven S. Boston, Chief Deputy; Michael Hixenbaugh, Deputy.