Veteran Superior Court Clerk Linda Pierce faces challenge from minister Ann Hardman

The voters of Muscogee County have a choice on May 24 when they decide who will be the clerk of Superior Court, a job that centers around handling the county’s real estate, criminal and civil records and supervises about 37 employees.

Linda Pierce, the incumbent who has been in the office for more than 27 years, is seeking her eighth term. She is being challenged by Ann Hardman, a minister and political newcomer.

Pierce is one of four elected officials — Sheriff John Darr, Marshal Greg Countryman and Municipal Clerk Vivian Creighton Bishop — who are suing the city over budget issues.

Pierce said the ongoing litigation is an election issue, but she does not know what impact it will have.

“I have no clue,” she said. “However, I will tell you I had no choice. After 27 years, I have worked through a lot of issues and a lot of years when I had to work around budgets. I have given money back. However, I had a situation occur in 2013 in which a server crashed in the Information Technology Department. It held all of my real estate records and all of my court images.”

Pierce said she found out at that time there was no backup of those records.

“I was able to reconstruct all of the real estate records, but we were not able to get roughly a half million official court records back,” she said. “That was the impetuous that started it.”

Hardman said the lawsuit is not the reason she is seeking the position, but she would work to smooth out the relationship between the clerk’s office and the city, which controls the budget.

“I would work very closely to city IT person,” she said. “I want to bring leadership that bridges the gap between that office and local government. Right now, it seems to be this one is suing for this and that one is suing for that. There should be a better way to collaborate.”

Ann Hardman

At 59 years old, Hardman has never sought political office. She lives in Columbus and is the chief executive officer of three ministries based here and in her hometown of Asheville, N.C.

“I prayed about it and I felt the Lord wanted me to do it,” she said of her qualifying-week decision to seek office. “When I first heard about it, there were several offices that were up.”

Her administrative work in the ministry and a decade of prior banking experience make her best suited for the Superior Court clerk’s seat held by Pierce, whom she said she has voted for several times.

“I see it more administrative,” Hardman said. “I understand the legal part. The thing that needs to be addressed is records. More technical type of filing where people can pull up information at their offices instead of coming down to our office.”

Hardman said the two things she would focus on is accountability and customer service.

“When people come in, you should be pleasant and you should not have to wait in long lines,” she said. “I have talked to a number of attorneys and they have said you have to wait too long to get copies. The first thing I will do is a forensic audit so that when I take office everything is clean. The second thing I want to do is build team leadership.”

If elected, she plans to retain her role as a minister, Hardman said.

“For 20-plus years I have trained administrators and leaders so I wouldn’t quit my job,” she said. “It would be more of what I am doing now, preaching on Sundays and training on Tuesdays.”

Linda Pierce

Pierce, who is eligible to retire, said her motivation to remain in office for four more years is to oversee the modernization of court documents.

“It looks like at some point in the next few years we are going to be implementing a modern court case management system,” she said. “Whether the funding comes first or it crashes first, one way or another it is going to happen.”

Pierce said she is working with the city’s Information Technology director to accomplish that. Asked why it has not happened yet, Pierce was specific.

“We are not a centralized court system in Georgia,” she said. “I know people say they do it across the river in Alabama, why can’t we do it. But they have a centralized court system in Alabama. We have 159 counties that are all free agents and we have a lot of court agencies that are independent of each other.”

She did say the real estate records are being modernized.

“Since I have been here at roughly an average of $90,000 spread out over a period of time, I have gone from a very elementary computer system that did nothing but enter data in it to one that has scanning, paperless deed records,” she said. “I have also online deed records at no charge. I developed the first website in the county. Over the last two years we have implemented electronic filing in real estate records. Our real estate system is truly an automated state-of-the-art system. E-filing is not mandatory, but it is optional. Locally, not as much. A lot of filing from out-of-town banks and mortgage companies.”

This story was originally published April 27, 2016 at 2:38 PM with the headline "Veteran Superior Court Clerk Linda Pierce faces challenge from minister Ann Hardman."