Area December 3, 2014 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • Page 17 Online services allow ease of access to public records Bergen County Clerk John S. Hogan announced that his office is ready to launch some major technology initiatives to better serve residents of the county. The first initiative, online public record searching, began a month ago on a trial basis and now is fully avail- able to the public. Residents now have the convenience of searching Bergen County land records online by simply going to the Bergen County Clerk’s website (www.bergen- countyclerk.org) and clicking on “land records” and “land records search.” Other public records available for online searching are notary publics (click on “notary public” from the Bergen County Clerk’s website then “notary public search”) and business trade names (click on “business” from the Bergen County Clerk’s website then “trade name search.” “This allows for easy verification of the status of a notary public and, in the case of business trade names, it saves residents the time and cumbersome task of coming into the office and manually viewing the availability of business trade names,” Hogan said. The clerk’s office now has a free mobile app with the same availability of public records searches plus election information, including finding a polling place, requesting a vote by mail ballot, viewing sample ballots, verifying your voter registration, and current and historical election results. In addition, the clerk and his staff have streamlined their interaction with the Bergen County Tax Board. Prior to the technology change, manual copies of deeds were forwarded to the Tax Board. “We are now completely electronic in communicating with the Tax Board,” Hogan said. “On a daily basis, we electronically send (the board) electronic deeds for them to collect the data and distribute to the municipal tax asses- sors. This is a great savings of time (and) supplies and frees up our employees for other tasks.” In the interest of taxpayers’ savings, the clerk’s office is in the process of archiving all tax records from 2010 to present in-house, as the office meets state standards for archiving. Previously, this would have been done by an outside company at a cost of approximately $40,000. Upcoming for early 2015 are e-recording of mortgages and credit card processing for passports and business trade names. “I am committed to the greater use of technology to better serve the residents of Bergen County,” Hogan added. “These initiatives will allow ease of access to public records, delivering instant customer service 24/7 and will provide a savings of time and money. The initiatives have facilitated better utilization of our already low number of employees, the lowest number of clerk’s office employees ever recorded.” He further noted that the technology initiatives were carried out at a minimum cost.