POULSBO — After almost 19 years in the basement of city hall on Jensen Way, Sherry White will be moving up as she retires at the end of July.

White has served as the deputy city clerk since 1991, after starting her career with the city in the planning department in 1987.

“Over 19 years, I’ve only missed 72 meetings, and by the middle of April, I had done about 5,200 pages of council minutes,” White said.

Those meetings have covered everything from the implementation of the state’s Growth Management Act to the Olhava hearings and a couple of attempts at building a new city hall, she said.

“No matter what the makeup of the council is, it seems to be the same issues and by the third or fourth time, it’s time for a change,” she said.

As deputy city clerk, much of her work has revolved around ensuring the city remained in compliance with state regulations, working with the city attorney to keep the city’s ordinances updated, handling public records requests and, of course, dealing with reporters, she said.

“Especially at the Herald, we’ve had a lot of reporters and every time we lost one we liked, another good one would show up,” she said.

The council has gone through noticeable changes in the past 19 years as well, and through it all, White said the city staff has stepped up to the challenge.

“They used to have four meetings a month, then they went to two and then to three with the committee system,” she said.

The committee meetings and other changes have meant extra staff support, but there hasn’t been much turnover in the clerk’s department as she and City Clerk Karol Jones have been mainstays.

One of the major changes in the clerk’s department has been the move toward being as paperless as possible, but White admitted she’s not sure if that will ever be a complete reality.

“Some of our computers have benefited our efficiency, but we’re using just as much paper because it allows us to publish more reports than we have before,” she said.

Plus, there’s the paper back-ups, which are kept in the basement of city hall as part of the city’s records management program, she said.

In 2004, White was awarded a $10,000 grant that allowed her to put many of the city’s records on microfilm, and all of the city council minutes from 1908 are stored in city hall as well.

All three of the mayors she has served: Mitch Mitchusson, Donna Jean Bruce and Kathryn Quade, have brought their own leadership styles to the city, but haven’t made a significant impact on the clerk’s office, White said.

Under Mitchusson and Bruce, White said her duties as the mayor’s executive secretary allowed her to use her creative side, but since Quade has tasked many of those functions to Wendy Harris, her responsibilities mainly focus on the operational side of things.

Now, with only five more council meetings left before she retires, White said she and her husband are looking forward to a number of trips and spending time with their grandchildren.

“My oldest grandchild graduates from high school in June and my youngest is 3,” she said. “I really haven’t gotten to know her yet.”

In addition to being a full-time grandmother, White said she plans on traveling to Minnesota and Rancho Mirage, Calif., to visit relatives she hasn’t seen much of during her 19 years of city service.