Salisbury welcomes Simmons as Clerk

SALISBURY — It’s official. Kristine Simmons is the town clerk in Salisbury.

She took over in December following the retirement of Patty Williams, who served as town clerk for 21 years.

A Lakeville Journal reporter stopped by Town Hall before the holidays.

Simmons and the new assistant town clerk, Jada Wilson, were running a little late returning from lunch because of an accident on Route 44.

They were accompanied by Levi Simmons, who had a half day at school, and Tito Wilson, a German Shepherd puppy with photogenically floppy ears.

Simmons is a native of North Canaan and her brother is North Canaan Selectman Craig Whiting.

She graduated from Housatonic Valley Regional High School in 1997, where she was prominent in the Housatonic FFA chapter.

“I loved the FFA program,” she said. “It got me through high school.”

Simmons subsequently studied to be a surgical veterinary technician at the State University of New York at Cobleskill and at Northwestern Connecticut Community College, and spent 24 years in that field.

Simmons said she loved the work but as her children got older, she felt she needed a regular work schedule.

So she came on board as assistant town clerk in Salisbury in 2021 when Rachel Lamb retired, and has now taken over for Williams, who retired last month.

Jada Wilson is the new assistant town clerk in Salisbury. And Tito is the assistant to the assistant town clerk.Patrick L. Sullivan

Wilson graduated from HVRHS in 2018 and was also an FFA stalwart. She studied Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Connecticut.

She started training to be the assistant town clerk in September of this year.

Asked for the most interesting or challenging aspects to the job thus far (and not counting the recent election), Simmons thought for a moment and settled on requests for information on properties when the caller doesn’t have a lot of information to start with.

She said a recent inquiry was trying to track down a property once owned by a relative but the only real clue — the name of the road the property was on — had been changed.

With only that to go on, Simmons and Wilson puzzled it out.

“We might not get it right away but we do get back to them,” said Simmons.