The clerk's desk: keeper of the record

1991 – today

The office: The city clerk is the second elected officer of the city, behind the mayor alone: keeper of the council's minutes and the city's ordinances, of the municipal code book and the city seal — the office through whose attestations every act in the Government section passed. The clerk's succession before the 1990s is not verified in the sources reached for this section, and the gap is printed rather than filled: the line below begins where the documents begin, with the clerk whose signature closes the council's 1991 valedictory to John Voorde.

Gammon, Duda, Voorde: Irene Gammon was city clerk in January 1991, signing Resolution 1830-91 in that office; she belonged to the generation of council figures — Roland Kelly's obituary names her among them — who moved between the council chamber and the clerk's desk. Loretta Duda held the office by 2003, when the assessor John Voorde filed against her for the Democratic nomination; Voorde won, and the clerkship he took in 2004 he held through 2015, leaving it to return to the council and endorsing his deputy for the succession.

Kareemah Fowler, the twenty-second clerk: Kareemah Fowler joined the clerk's office in 2010, a Riley High School and Bethel College graduate, and rose to deputy clerk under Voorde. Elected in 2015 — with the endorsements of the mayor, of her predecessor, and of former mayor and governor Joe Kernan — she took office as the city's twenty-second clerk by her own office's count, and, as her resignation release states the record, the first minority elected to a full-time executive office in St. Joseph County: the 2015 returns confirm that no ethnic minority had ever before been elected to a full-time executive office in the county. She styled the clerk "historian and archivist of the City," and made the styling fact: in May 2017 her office completed the digitization of the city's records from 1865 to the present, record books that had been handwritten until 1901. On 16 July 2019 she announced her resignation, effective 1 August 2019, to become chief financial officer of the South Bend Community School Corporation.

Jones and Tirado: Dawn M. Jones was sworn in as clerk on 15 August 2019, chosen by caucus to fill the vacancy and then elected in her own right. She came to the desk from the other side of the city's public life: nineteen years — some five terms — as a trustee of the South Bend Community School Corporation, seven years on the staff of Congressman Tim Roemer, and service as executive director of the YMCA's Urban Youth Services, with bachelor's and master's degrees from Indiana University South Bend. Bianca Tirado, elected in 2023 and in office from January 2024, holds the desk as this record closes — a University of Notre Dame master's graduate in executive nonprofit administration by the city's own biography, out of Indiana University Bloomington.

Sources:

1. City of South Bend, Resolution No. 1830-91 (7 January 1991) — Irene Gammon signing as City Clerk.
2. Office of the City Clerk, resignation release of Kareemah Fowler (16 July 2019; city document archive) — the twenty-second city clerk; first minority elected to a full-time executive office in St. Joseph County; resignation effective 1 August 2019 for the school corporation's chief financial office.
3. Office of the City Clerk (31 May 2017; city document archive) — completion of the digitization of all city records from 1865 to the present; the record books handwritten until 1901; the clerk as "historian and archivist of the City."
4. The 2015 election record (standard references) — the clerk's duties (records, ordinances, code book, city seal), the office as second-highest elected position in the city, and no minority previously elected to a full-time county executive office.
5. City of South Bend — Dawn M. Jones sworn in as clerk 15 August 2019; her school-board, congressional-staff and YMCA service as carried in the city's account; Bianca Tirado, city clerk (city biography, southbendin.gov).
6. South Bend Tribune / Gannett (31 March 2015) — Mayor Buttigieg's endorsement of Deputy Clerk Kareemah Fowler; Fowler joined the clerk's office in 2010; Clerk John Voorde's endorsement.