Mark Lunn If elected to head the Ventura County Clerk and Recorder’s Office, Newbury Park resident Mark Lunn said he’ll make greater use of technology to streamline administrative procedures and preserve vital records in Ventura County. Lunn pulled papers to run the first day of filing.

The chief of staff for county Supervisor Peter Foy and chair of the Thousand Oaks Planning Commission originally announced that he was going to seek the office in August.

“Running for office is something I wanted to do for a long time,” Lunn said in an interview with the Acorn. “This office is a natural fit for my leadership skills.”

The election to fill the four-year term beginning November 2010 will take place in June. James Becker is the acting clerk-recorder.

Clerk-recorders manage elections and county records, such as birth certificates, marriage licenses and property ownership recordings.

The Ventura County clerk-recorder earns about $144,000 a year and manages an $8-million budget while overseeing 59 employees.

Though he looked at his options for a Thousand Oaks City Council seat, among other things, Lunn said he settled on the clerk-recorder position because he’s not a politician and the job suits him.

Lunn, 55, is a former chief for the California Highway Patrol.

He began a career in law enforcement with the California State Police when he was 19 and briefly worked for the Monrovia Police Department before joining the CHP in 1979. Over the next 27 years, Lunn climbed the management ladder with the state agency. He retired in August 2006.

“I see a lot of similarities between what I did with the CHP and the work of a clerk-recorder. Both jobs include a huge amount of management and record keeping and integrity to keep elections free from bias,” he said.

Lunn has been chief of staff for Foy since 2006, when the Simi Valley resident was elected to represent the Moorpark and Simi area on the county panel.

The most important task of a clerk-recorder is to conduct fair and impartial elections without showing prejudice toward one particular political party, said Phil Schmit, who stepped down from the position in January 2009.

“As an elected registrar of voters, you have the responsibility to make sure everybody follows all laws. There are no gray areas—it’s black and white,” Schmit said.

If elected, Lunn said, he plans to incorporate more technology in county records operations to expedite elections, use a scanner to evaluate signatures rather than the existing manual system and maintain property and vital records.

He hopes to open a satellite office to serve East County residents and offer more services online to reduce processing time. He also wants to ensure that the database of historical county records can be retrieved within 24 hours after a natural or man-made disaster.

Lunn and his wife, Malisa, have been married for 20 years. The couple have two children, Lauren, 18, and Max, 16.