March 2, 2016 -- As a 21-year veteran of the Santa Monica City Clerk’s Office, Denise Anderson-Warren has done almost every job there is to do in that office.

Now she’s adding a new position to her resume: Anderson-Warren has been named Santa Monica’s new City Clerk, a job she says will be challenging but also exciting – especially in a city with no shortage of controversies that usually pass through her office, mostly on the way to the City Council or a public ballot.

“It’s never boring,” said Anderson-Warren of her tenure, which started back when she was 31 – she’s 52 now – and left her position with California Emergency Services to take the job in Santa Monica at the urging of some officials there who had worked with her. “I can tell you in Santa Monica, there’s always something that comes up.”

“I’m glad for the City Council’s faith in me,” she added. “It’s pretty big shoes to fill.”

Her base pay is $15,269 a month, officials said in announcing her job on February 23.

Anderson-Warren replaces Sarah Gorman, who started the job in 2012.

“Denise is uniquely poised to run the City Clerk’s Office with her depth of experience managing elections and public records,” said Mayor Tony Vazquez. “She is widely respected within the department, City and the regional clerk community. Denise will serve our community with integrity and a strong vision for the future.”

City officials also said Anderson-Warren has a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the University of Redlands, with a minor in Political Science. She lives in Inglewood.

Starting at the City Clerk’s Office as a Staff Assistant lll, Anderson-Warren has served in every position there but mail courier, she said, including Deputy City Clerk, Records Management Coordinator, and Records and Election Services Manager.

It has been a time of big transition for the Office as it continues moving from a world where everything is handled by paper to one that is comprised of computers and business is increasingly done online, she said.

The office is also sometimes the first face the public sees in the City of Santa Monica government and helps prep those planning to address the City Council, she said.

“We try to help things run as smoothly as we can,” she said.

A new change for the City Clerk’s office, started in January, involves posting printed letters, emails and other correspondence to the City Council online. Big issues can swamp the office with letters that need to be transferred to the internet and attached to the City Council’s online agenda at its website.

It started with the January 12 agenda, and included a long list of comments about the proposed increase in the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2020 for most workers in Santa Monica, approved that night by the City Council.

Another big crop of public correspondence that needed online posting ended in the City Clerk’s Office in early February, largely from proponents of including a sports field at the Civic Auditorium site downtown when it is finally is reconstructed.

“We received hundreds of (pieces) of correspondence,” she said.

Anderson-Warren said she can easily see herself retiring in her current post at some future point. For now, though, she said her mission is clear: Providing “the best customer service possible” and “strengthening the relationship between the City Clerk’s Office and members of the public.”