HR0816 97TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HR0816 LRB097 20624 KXB 66427 r

HOUSE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois House of Representatives are pleased to congratulate Patricia A. Murphy, who is retiring from the City of Chicago after providing over 30 years of dedicated service, exclusively with the Council Division of the Office of the City Clerk; and

WHEREAS, She began her tenure back in 1980, when the late Honorable Lemuel Austin Jr., 34th Ward Alderman, took a chance and gave her an opportunity in city government; the only in-house staff person selected to serve in the then new word processing section, she went on to become the resident problem-solver for both operational and procedural difficulties; and

WHEREAS, Despite the fact that all staff members were trained in new system updates, she was consistently the most conversant with and became the resource person for new associated procedures; as the Index Editor who leads by example, she has made a personal and substantial contribution to the enhancement of the professionalism of her colleagues and instilled in them a sense of enthusiasm and teamwork that resulted in the consistent achievement of publication deadlines for the Guide to Legislation and the Index to the Journal of Proceedings; and

WHEREAS, On her own initiative, she analyzed the document flow originating with the City Council, funneled through the Office of the City Clerk, and the various city council committees; as a consequence of this analysis, she developed procedural changes which responded to the time sensitive nature of the document flow by ensuring that the city council committees received their documents significantly sooner than under the previous process; and

WHEREAS, Pat Murphy has managed the day-to-day operations of the document reference and review section; she was the custodian of all legislation passed by the city council as well as being responsible for all historic documents; her development and implementation of specialized recordkeeping programs significantly enhanced the responsiveness and accuracy of the office vis-a-vis research requests generated by city officials and the public; and

WHEREAS, Due to her reservoir of historical information, breadth of technical expertise, and unwavering consistency under deadline pressure, she is the chief resource person, and as a consequence of her encyclopedic memory and the specialized document search tools and logs she developed, she is the primary legislative research specialist of the Office of the City Clerk; and

WHEREAS, She was nominated twice for the Kathy Osterman Award for outstanding City Service and on August 12, 2001, was featured in the Chicago Tribune "Working on the Job" section and classified as a "Troubleshooter" for her vast amount of responsibilities; and

WHEREAS, As the Assistant Managing Editor of the Council Division, she is responsible for assisting in the monitoring of staff assignments in the reproduction of legislative documents for the publication of the Council Journal of Proceedings; she is the primary person responsible for recording all aldermanic votes and related notes at city council meetings with the City Clerks' new document management system; and

WHEREAS, In retirement, she can now exhale, enjoy her daughter, Bianca, and little Ms. Azuria, her outspoken and animated 3-year old granddaughter; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE NINETY-SEVENTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we congratulate Patricia Murphy on her retirement and wish her all the best in her future endeavors; and be it further

RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be presented to Patricia Murphy as a symbol of our respect and esteem.