For the past three decades Carol Meissner has been the person that everyone has gone to for just about anything in the Town of Evans.

That all came to an end Dec. 31, when Meissner retired after serving 30 years as town clerk.
Originally from South Buffalo, Meissner moved to the area with her husband and their 2-year-old and 6-month old in the autumn of 1972.

“The people embraced me as soon as I moved here,” said Meissner. “They were wonderful and helped me get involved in the community.”

She became an election inspector and was active with other volunteer groups in the area.

Originally employed as a long distance operator for AT&T, she later went to work for Harold C. Brown & Co., stock brokers in the Liberty Bank building in Buffalo for several years.

In 1978 Evans Town Clerk Lewis Leone asked Meissner to be his deputy clerk.

“With three small boys, I thought it would be better to take this position and be closer to my family,” said Meissner.

In 1979 Leone retired and Meissner was elected for a two-year term as town clerk. In 1981 the term was expanded to four years and she was re-elected.

“Since then I have served with seven town supervisors and 27 different council members,” said Meissner. “I have seen a lot of changes over the years, from hand written receipts to a cash register to computers.”

Over the years the town clerk’s office has been involved bringing more and more services to the town.

“We now have the Department of Motor Vehicles Office here five days a week, at no charge to the residents,” said Meissner. “Along with all the licenses that we offer, we also can do passports.

“All the changes make this challenging, but I love it and I love expanding my knowledge. This is a great learning experience.”

Things have become even more challenging since Sept. 11, 2001.

“Since then there are more stringent rules and you really have to be on your toes,” Meissner said. “There is more paper work and more documentation to secure people’s identity.

“Record keeping is also a major project in terms on how long you store it. It isn’t the same for everything and you are responsible for it all.”
Meissner isn’t shy on praising her deputy clerks who share the office with her, showering Lynn Stoessel and Jonica DiMartino with plenty of compliments.

“Lynn has been with me for 20 years and she has done an outstanding job,” said Meissner. “She has been by my side through a lot of changes. I know that Jonica (who was elected town clerk this past November) will make a great town clerk. She has been my deputy for three years and I have faith in her abilities to handle the job. We made a good team.”

Meissner is highly respected by many of the employees of Evans Town Hall.

“It has been such an honor and pleasure to have her as a mentor, employee and friend. She is such an amazing example to follow,” said Stoessel.

“She is such a good natured person, always working with everyone with dignity and was always fair. She has taught me so much in so many ways.”

Along with doing the day-to-day work at the office, Meissner has been involved in a host of organizations that tie into her job.

Since 1980 Meissner has been a member of the Erie County Town Clerk’s Association and has served as secretary, vice president, president (1985-86 and 1997-1998) and treasurer.

While serving as president, she initiated the Erie County Town Clerk of the year award and scholarship in 1998.

“It was my honor to present that first award to North Collins Town Clerk Maggie Orrange,” Meissner said.

Orrange has nothing but the highest regard for Meissner and her years of service.

“We go back 30 years because we came in at the same time,” said Orrange, who will now be the senior town clerk in Erie County. “We’ve been through it all, divorces, marriages, deaths and births. We are losing a lot when she leaves.”

Meissner has also been a member of the New York State Town Clerk’s Association since 1982 and was a district director 1982-83. She is a member of the National Association for Female Executives, the National Organization for Women, has been a New York State Notary Public since 1978 and is a member of the National Notary Association.

She served as a moderator at meetings for town clerks and served on the Credentials Committee for the New York State Association of Towns in 1989.

Meissner was also presented two prestigious awards in 2001; the Erie County Town Clerk of the Year Award and the New York State Town Clerk of the Year Award.

“She has always been one of the people I’d go to if I had a question because she had a wealth of knowledge,” said Hamburg Town Clerk Cathy Rybczynski.

“It is a real pleasure dealing with her. She has always been nonpartisan in her dealings with all the town clerks. She would help everyone and she will be greatly missed.”

According to Meissner, she always followed the Golden Rule of “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”

“One should always treat people with dignity and respect, no matter what age they are or what the situation,” Meissner said.

She added she has always believed that and feels that has helped her through many situations.

“My job is to be the intermediary between the people and the town government. I’ve helped people prepare petitions, pointed them in the right direction to get help. Morally, it was my job to help the people.”

Helping people didn’t stop at the office either. Along with all the organizations which revolve around her position in the town, she also volunteers a lot of her time with the youth in the area.

“I always wanted to be a school teacher,” Meissner said. “I love children and working with them. I volunteered every time something was going on which impacted our children.”

This included working with the police on a fingerprinting program for children, conducting voter registration for senior high students, lectures in student government classes for the Lake Shore Central School District and conducting voting machine knowledge classes at the elementary and middle schools.

In addition, Meissner initiated a program for registered high school seniors to work election day as an election inspector without absence from school and was a guest reader at the elementary schools to promote reading.

And then there was Evans Youth Court.
Started around 1996, the purpose of the Evans Youth Court is to offer an alternative to family court for accused juvenile offenders between the ages of 7 and 15-years-old. The court listens to and then passes a decision on juvenile misdemeanors, violations and infractions.

The cases referred to the Youth Court are mostly shoplifting, vandalism, criminal mischief, harassment and petit larceny.

“It was a real pleasure to see how our future citizens took a real interest in what is going on in our community,” said Meissner, who served as vice chair of the group, which was started by Evans Police Officer Bill Sills, who has been involved with the town’s D.A.R.E. Program since 1989.

“The program is on hiatus now because there weren’t enough cases coming from the courts or schools to keep it running,” said Meissner. “Maybe that is a good thing, but I miss it. I was really proud of those students.”

She has also sponsored an Evans Youth Baseball Team since 1990 and over the years has sponsored soccer and basketball teams at Lake Shore, sponsored underprivileged youth to attend the Town of Evans Summer Day Camp and has sponsored BRIDGES, a non-alcoholic post prom party for the Lake Shore Central School District for the past 14 years.

Looking into the future Meissner is planning on traveling with her husband Jim Meissner (a retired police officer from the Town of Evans) and spending time with her sons, Michael (Christine), Thomas and Joseph Franey; step-daughter Jill (Chad) Frazier and grandchildren Alexa, Trey and Lauren Franey and Melinda, Shannon, Zoe and Colton Frazier.
She also plans on volunteering at Operation Good Neighbor and possibly helping with the local Meals on Wheels volunteer efforts.

“I will make a clean cut from the office when I leave after filing the year end reports on Dec. 31,” said the 62-year-old Meissner. “It has been a great time, I’ve enjoyed it immensely, but it is now time for me to spend quality time with my family and do some of those things I couldn’t do before. I will miss all the people here in the town that I have worked with over the years, We are very fortunate to have all these dedicated employees here and I will miss working with them all.”

Meissner’s thoughts are feelings that were echoed earlier this week by her deputy clerk.
“I’ve been blessed to be able to learn from her and to have her be part of my life for 20 years,” said Stoessel. “I’m really going to miss her.”

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