Running opposed for the first time since being elected 12 years ago, Hamilton County Juvenile Court Clerk Ron Swafford is defending his office and telling his GOP opponent that his job is more difficult than it seems.
Gary Behler, operations director for Chattanooga's family organization First Things First, wants to take over Mr. Swafford's duties and is challenging the clerk in the Aug. 5 election. He said Juvenile Court needs a "technological" overhaul, lessons in customer service and a clerk who is more in touch with the city's juvenile crime issues.
Mr. Swafford said he has submitted a budget request to the County Commission for an upgrade to digital court recording equipment.
And while knowing the community and its problems is an important endeavor, Mr. Swafford said, time constraints and the sheer volume of cases the clerk must deal with make that goal untenable during working hours.
Court clerks such as Mr. Swafford work in relative obscurity behind the scenes of local crowded courtrooms, which funnel thousands of criminal offenders through their doors each year. They accept documents from lawyers working on particular cases, stamp the documents and make them "legal" records of the court, Mr. Swafford said.
"Ninety percent of what we do in this office is dictated by law," Mr. Swafford said. "The Juvenile Court clerk's first responsibility is to administer the court, to keep accurate records and to support effectively the judicial process."
It's a job he said he has done effectively and with the full support of his staff members over the years.
Retired Senior Deputy Court Clerk Dolores Lord praised Mr. Swafford for recognizing when he first took over that the Juvenile Court clerk's office needed more human resources.
"We were running ragged and very short staffed," Ms. Lord said. "(Mr. Swafford) hired extra people who we desperately needed. It made the clerk's office much more efficient and accurate."
Ms. Lord added that the job very much requires "someone who's familiar with the work."
"You can't just step in and take over this job. It's a difficult, demanding, full-time job," Ms. Lord said.
Mr. Swafford is a certified public administrator and the current president of the Tennessee State Court Clerks Association. Before being elected court clerk, Mr. Swafford had worked for the court in other administrative capacities. Longtime Juvenile Court Judge Suzanne Bailey named him employee of the year in 1992.
As for customer service, Mr. Swafford said the office "never has had any complaints" and that people's impressions of Juvenile Court are formed more from interaction with court officers and prosecutors.
"We're really just down here in the trenches," Mr. Swafford said.
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