A final ‘blur’ of a day for Beth McEwen after 28 years at CBJ before Breckan Hendricks takes over as city clerk
- Mark Sabbatini
- Jul 2
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 2
Beth McEwen says her last day as Juneau’s city clerk after a 25-year career at that office was a blur, while Breckan Hendricks spent her first day as the new clerk getting things in focus.
McEwen spent Monday conducting staff evaluations, doing final reviews of a trio of election petitions and lots of other everyday municipal government tasks before going to a farewell party at Sandy Beach. At the party — where a who’s-who of public employees and officials showed up — she said one thing she didn’t have time to finish was clearing out her office.
"I still have to go back and get a few things that I couldn't fit in the car," she said.
Shortly after the clerk’s office opened at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, Hendricks was sitting at the chief clerk’s desk for the first time in that official role. There were no welcome balloons (or leftover decor from McEwen’s departure), just the usual quiet buzz of the heart of the city’s administrative offices.
"So it's really for me just starting familiarizing myself with this office and with all my resources here, and going through all of that is what my day is going to look like today," she said.
Hendricks, however, has plenty of familiarity with City and Borough of Juneau operations and most of the duties she’ll be asked to perform as its clerk. She started working for CBJ 11 years ago as a temp hire answering phones for Capital Transit before spending more than a decade working for the Department of Engineering and Public Works.
"I'm really proud of getting the opportunity to do this," she said. "I really thrive in a busy environment with lots of work to do and I feel like this is something that I will be pretty happy with. To be able to see the things that we're doing and help the community, and be able to go into code and charter, and even just (working) on the ballot is pretty exciting."
Hendricks said she’s a fourth-generation Juneau resident, with at least three of those generations working for the city government in the police and fire departments, public works, and administration.
"I like rules and I like figuring out how to stay within those rules — and when the rules don't make sense I like figuring out what we can do about that," she said. Also, beyond the process itself, "I like just the customer service side of things."
"It's been fun working for Engineering and Public Works," she said. "I touch streets. I touch transit. I touch utilities, which has been really hot lately."
McEwen, who said she was asked by the city manager’s office to weigh in on the applicants for the clerk’s job, said Hendricks’ range of experience is an asset and she has been a quick study during the weeks since her hiring became official.
"Breckan has been in multiple CBJ departments, and knows city stuff inside and out, and will hit the road running and I know she’ll do a fantastic job," McEwen said.
A full calendar up until — and beyond — retirement
McEwen worked for 28 years for CBJ, including as municipal clerk since 2018 and as deputy clerk during the preceding 18 years. Among her accolades are being named the state’s Municipal Employee of the Year in 2015 and Municipal Clerk of the Year in 2023.
Her retirement announcement was announced publicly at a Juneau Assembly meeting in late February of this year.
“I was eligible in 2023, but I felt like I had a lot more projects and things to accomplish before I retired,” she said in a brief interview with the Juneau Empire after that meeting. “Now is the time. None of us are getting any younger and I have some personal family matters that I want to attend to while I’m still young enough to do it.”
“My next goals are to do some world traveling,” McEwen added.
Her first statewide recognition in 2015 was being selected among 35,000 local government workers for the Municipal Employee of the Year Award during the 2015 Alaska Municipal League Conference. She was then voted education director by the Alaska Association of Municipal Clerks in 2021, making her responsible for guiding other clerks around the state through the intricacies of the 2022 elections. She was filming the Alaska Association of Municipal Clerks’ award ceremony in 2023 when she was surprisingly herself named clerk of the year.
The job over the years has involved organizational details for dozens of CBJ boards and committees, documenting everything seen and done at Assembly meetings, handling election matters from candidate registrations to a recently approved overhaul of the municipal code for elections, and considerably more.
McEwen said all that is a big level of responsibility for whoever takes on the job, but also generally comes with a big level of appreciation.
"I would say for anyone stepping into that there's always going to be some nerves in your first meeting," she said during her farewell party. But when it was her turn "everybody survived the meeting" and the appreciation grew as the years went on.
"And so as public servants, even the comments that I got from elected officials that were here tonight shared how, when they walked into our office for the first time with their candidate paperwork, they were just so overwhelmed with nerves and we put them at ease. And to me that's what the clerk's office is all about — is making people feel like this is not insurmountable. Whatever it is that you're encountering, this is a human situation and you humanize it for them it so it doesn't need to be intimidating."
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.
