Photo by Erin Nelson.
Dan Weinrib, the new Trussville city clerk, attends a city council meeting Jan. 12.
Dan Weinrib could label himself a double play.
The new Trussville city clerk, on the job since November, must be as detailed as a city’s chief records officer and accurate as a baseball umpire calling balls and strikes. In Weinrib’s case, both are true.
Weinrib has been an umpire with the Alabama High School Athletic Association since 2000.
“I love the game of baseball,” said Weinrib, a third-generation Cincinnati Reds fan. “I was born in a family that loves baseball.”
Originally from Montgomery, Weinrib became a Reds fan because his maternal grandfather, a Cincinnati businessman, first got season tickets in the 1930s. Family trips to Ohio were planned around summer home stands.
Umpiring, Weinrib said, requires knowing many rules. It works the same way as the city clerk. He must know national and state laws, local ordinances, and many more rules and regulations.
“[Umpiring] was excellent training for me to get into public service,” Weinrib said.
Before coming to Trussville, he served as the city clerk in Tarrant for four years. He was the Jefferson County tax assessor from 2003 to 2009. It was in preparing for that role that he met Lynn Porter, the former Trussville city clerk. He even spoke at a conference that Porter asked him to participate in.
“It’s just funny how things work out,” he said.
When Tarrant hired him in 2016, Porter became his “chief mentor.”
“And four years later I find myself succeeding my own mentor,” said Weinrib, who is married to Karen, with whom he has a 13-year-old son, Jack. “I’m honored to be here, and I’m honored to follow in my mentor’s footsteps.”
Weinrib said he loves making a difference in the lives of the residents who live where he works.
“The city clerk’s job is important in that it helps do exactly that because you’re the chief records officer, you supervise over a few employees and the work that they do, you get to meet all kinds of people from all walks of life and really immerse yourself quickly in the Trussville community,” he said. “So, what is there not to love? If you love public service and you love people, then the city clerk’s job is an awesome job to have, and I’m honored to have it.”
Weinrib said his mindset is to come in every day and get as much done to move the city forward as possible. Anything beyond that is gravy.
“As long as the mayor and [city] council and my colleagues are happy, then I’ve done my job,” he said. “When a constituent says, ‘Thank you,’ I know I’ve done my job. This is definitely a job that is very much behind the curtains, and that’s by design.”
