The entrance to the Southern Bristol County Registry of Deeds in downtown New Bedford. [ Jack Spillane ]

The new register of deeds for Southern Bristol County is a woman who started as a junior clerk at the registry 32 years ago.

Sherrilynn Mello, 54, is the rare nonpolitician to hold one of these plum top county administrative jobs. Could it be that the three-member board of the Bristol commissioners are losing their taste for patronage? 

On March 9, a little over a month after Register Fred Kalisz’s unexpected death, commissioners John Saunders of New Bedford, Paul Kitchen of Fairhaven and John Mitchell of Fall River quietly voted to appoint Mello to the top registry job. She had been serving as an administrative assistant specialist prior to her appointment and was the registry’s longest serving employee. The vote was unanimous.

“I’m proud to say I voted to appoint the first woman register in Bristol County,” said Saunders, as inside a political player on Southcoast as there is.

The appointment was evidently done quickly and was not controversial among the three commissioners. Like Saunders, they are all among Southcoast’s long-time political players.

Mello said that in the back of her mind over the years she had thought from time to time of doing the top job. After Kalisz’s death, she said she sent in her resume and didn’t know who else may or may not have applied but assumed there were many.

“The opportunity was there. I thought. ‘I can do this,’” she said.

According to Saunders, there were seven people who approached the commissioners about the job, five of whom sent in resumes. Among them were David Gerwatowski, the longtime legal counsel to the New Bedford City Council, and Gregory DeMelo, a Taunton School Committee member. 

DeMelo himself a little over a decade ago ran three times to be a county commissioner. He says he later withdrew his application.

Gerwatowski, a competent guy and himself a former city councilor, worked for a decade in a top job at the New Bedford Housing Authority, and would have held two plum government posts had he been appointed to the registry. His part-time council job in 2020 paid over $72,000 and the registry job pays $112,00 to $115,000. Currently in private practice, Gerwatowski said he just threw his name in if the commissioners wanted to consider him.

When former Register J. Mark Treadup recommended a long-term registry employee for the top position in 2017, the commission instead appointed Kalisz. This time they went with the long-time employee, who by all appearances best knows how the operation operates. 

According to Mello, she had the most experience of anyone working at the registry and Register Kalisz would come to her and talk to her about how the office functioned. Like many longtime workers, she had her own ideas about how things could be better. 

“I have a vision of how I want the registry to run,” she said.

Sherrilynn Mello is the new register of deeds for Bristol County South. She is the first woman to be register and has worked her way to the top post from being a junior clerk. [ Contributed photo ]

Mello said she is thrilled to have been appointed so quickly, and to have won the job working her way up from a clerk all these years.

Among her goals, Mello said, is to continue with the process of transferring the registry’s written records online. Right now, they have transferred the real estate records back to 1970 but the plan is to transfer them back to 1950. The more that registry records are online, the more conveniently the public will be able to research the records at their convenience, without coming into the building, she explained.

The recent registers of Southern Bristol County have all been politicians and white men. 

Kalisz had been out of office as mayor 11 years when he won the job. A political adversary of the Saunders crowd when he started his mayorship in 1997, by the end of his eight years in office, Kalisz and Saunders were political allies. 

Prior to Kalisz, J. Mark Treadup had held the office for 17 years until he resigned when his health failed with Parkinson’s Disease. 

A political reformer during his time on the New Bedford City Council and School Committee, Treadup  will be remembered for making the registry handicapped accessible. It was a measure that should have been accomplished long before he took office.

Prior to Treadup, the top registry job had been led by James Henry who did a laudable job, according to many observers. He had initially been appointed to the post but he was a Republican in a Democratic county. After a time, Treadup, a Democrat, came in and beat him easily. Some of Treadup’s victory margin may have been due to his reputation as a reformer, but no doubt much of it was due to the fact he was a Democrat and Henry was a Republican in southern Bristol County.

All things political of course are connected and ironic in Bristol County. Saunders, also a Democrat, himself once ran unsuccessfully against Jim Henry for the register’s job. He eventually ended up being elected a county commissioner after he lost his position on the City Council after 30 years; he then was in a position to influence the appointment of the next two registers, Kalisz and now Mello. 

Saunders’ cousin Chris had previously moved over from his own county commissioner seat to be county treasurer. The same commissioners he served with appointed him. Chris Saunders subsequently has won re-election easily many times. This is how things have traditionally operated in Bristol County.

So Saunders this time went with the nonpolitician for the register job. He’s 59 now and perhaps he has mellowed with age. He has his own two government jobs at UMass Dartmouth and the paid elected post with the county.

As affable as ever, Saunders emphasized that he takes pride in appointing Mello, both because she is the first woman in the post and because she is competent and worked her way up. The deed was done quickly and without any fuss and he says he has no connection to the new register.

“I don’t know her,” he said.

An election to fill out Kalisz’s six-year tenure won’t be required until 2022. And after that the full-term will be up in 2024.

Mello says she intends to run both times.