Meet the candidates running for Cleveland County Court Clerk

Three new candidates are looking to challenge incumbent Marilyn Williams in the Cleveland County Court Clerk election.

Williams will face newcomers Cyndi Arthur and Debora Cardwell in the June 18 Republican Primary. If no candidate meets the required 50 percent mark, Cleveland County will host a runoff vote between the top two candidates Aug. 27 to decide a winner.

The Primary winner will face Independent Lisa Meyer in the Nov. 5 General Election.

Here’s a look at the candidates and their values ahead of the upcoming election.

Republican Cyndi Arthur

As a paralegal with 30 years of experience working with the law alongside various attorneys, Arthur believes she is uniquely qualified to take office. She plans to address the office’s document filing procedures and high turnover rate should she be elected.

“I would bring something special to the office given my knowledge of the law,” Arthur said. “I know the filing system that is necessary in the law office, which should also be necessary in the court clerk’s office.

“I know how frustrating it is that we can’t get access to documents that we should have access to,” she said. “There are literally judges who don’t have their documents, so they can’t properly represent our legal system when they don’t have documents that have been filed.”

Arthur also raised concerns about training efforts within the office, claiming, “The girls in the office are not being trained properly because you have a turnover that’s so high that those who are trying to train others haven’t even really been trained themselves,”

Speaking of the office’s turnover rate, Arthur claimed, “In the eight years that the current court clerk has been there, there have been 40-plus employees come and go,” explaining she would rectify the situation by “cleaning up [the office] and making it more professional” so the judicial system can run efficiently.

Arthur added she would implement an open-door policy to ensure cohesive communication between employees, as well as discussing problems with past and present employees to gauge their thoughts and consider their solutions.

Republican Debora Cardwell

Although it might be her first time running for court clerk, Cardwell feels good about her chances to succeed in office given her prior experience serving as the deputy court clerk from 2016 to 2023.

Speaking on her experience campaigning so far, Cardwell said, “I haven’t really run into any challenges. It’s very busy and I’ve learned a lot, but that’s about it. It’s just been a lot of fun meeting so many new people.”

Similar to Arthur, Cardwell plans to address the employee turnover rate in hopes of bringing some consistency to the office.

“I think the turnover rate is a big issue because if there’s a big turnover, you’re constantly hiring and training and that takes a lot… People who come in don’t have as many qualified employees at the court to consistently help them,” Cardwell said.

She further explained that if she can fix the issue and keep people at their jobs, Cleveland County residents will have a more efficient and consistent experience with better customer service.

“I want to make a difference in that office… I want to make people want to enjoy coming to work and serving the public,” Cardwell said.

Although she has specific plans in place to address the office’s issues, Cardwell withheld these ideas, stating, “I really don’t want to say how I will do it simply because I don’t want it getting to the wrong people, but I do have plans and thoughts in play to correct our problems.”

Independent Lisa Meyer

Meyer, a self-employed contractor with a background in management and finance, entered the race after a narrow defeat in the 2020 Cleveland County Clerk election. However, this time Meyer filed as an Independent, citing the division in both major political parties as the reasoning behind her decision.

“There are so many Republicans and Democrats that feel they’ve been left behind in the party… especially in Cleveland County,” she said. “You sit back as a Republican for so many years and you feel they don’t represent you anymore.”

Meyer added the internal conflict within both parties has created a “toxic environment on both sides,” and implores voters to look beyond a candidate’s party designation and, instead, look into their positions and values.

“I stand on ethics and the truth,” she said, adding, “People should always hold their elected officials accountable for their actions and what they do in that office. As a candidate, that’s what I’m doing.”

Similar to other candidates, Meyer cited problems with leadership and employee turnover and hopes to establish a more efficient and welcoming environment for both the staff and the constituents they serve through teamwork and camaraderie.

“I feel it’s very important to return compassionate leadership so employees feel safe and comfortable in their jobs,” Meyer said. “Proper training is essential and would lessen opportunities for mistakes in the office,” she added.

“The court clerk’s office is there to serve the legal community of Cleveland County. When there is teamwork, training and compassionate leadership, it makes for a much better environment which results in a productive group of employees to serve our legal community and the constituents of Cleveland County that elected you,” Meyer concluded.

Republican Marilyn Williams

As the incumbent, Marilyn Williams is hoping to win her third straight election and cites her experience in the office as the main reason residents should vote for her.

“No one has as much experience or knows as much about what we do here than I do,” Williams claimed, adding if she is elected again, “things will continue to run as planned.”

“Things are actually going very smoothly. We have some things that we are modernizing right now, and as we do that, I think we will become less reliant on paper, which gives us room to expand on some of what we do [in the office],” she said.

Williams addressed grievances about the staff’s functionality, stating, “I understand what everyone says about people needing to be cross-trained. Those people don’t necessarily realize how the office functions and what we do.

“Whenever someone works in an area, they perfect their job, and each area has different laws they’re following. People always say we need to cross-train, but that’s not necessarily true so much here as in smaller counties.”

As mentioned above, Williams is currently working on transitioning to an electronic filing program that she thinks will make case files more accessible and easier to find. The office is also scanning microfilm records to make them easily available digitally, a project Williams has worked on since 2018.

“We are the busiest office in the courthouse — we just don’t slow down. We used to have some lag time but we don’t have that anymore because we are continuously filing cases and waiting on customers,” Williams said.

“As you make things more readily available electronically you’re not having to use as many paper files. The hope is eventually to cut down on how much we’re spending on those things. Over time, we figure it won’t take as many employees to file, which will free them up to wait on more customers and do those types of things that really [make us] busy.”