WELLFLEET — The addition of a fourth full-time employee of the shellfish dept. has stirred turmoil between town officials and members of the shellfishing community, who claim the process by which Town Administrator Rich Waldo and Shellfish Constable Nancy Civetta established the position was deceitful.
But officials say the deputy constable position was created through routine procedures, and that the accusations are unjustified.
The new deputy was budgeted as a three-quarter-time job in the operating budget at last April’s town meeting. It was increased to full-time with the approval of the select board on July 13 as part of a departmental reorganization — and then approved again on Oct. 17 after select board member John Wolf requested a second vote.
A Nov. 9 opinion from Town Counsel Carolyn Murray of KP Law said that Waldo was within his legal authority as administrator to increase the position to full-time.
Outrage over the position, which is still unfilled, has led to heated exchanges among the select board, shellfish advisory board, and finance committee. Public comments at those meetings have shown intense distrust of Wellfleet’s town government.
Waldo told the Independent that the controversy was “a piece of the puzzle” that led him to submit his resignation on Dec. 20. His last day as town administrator will be Feb. 9.
A $9.5 Million Industry
Wellfleet’s shellfish dept. currently has three full-time staffers. It oversees an industry with $9.5 million in revenue, more than any other town in the state, according to Civetta.
Shellfishing is the town’s principal year-round industry, with roughly 10 percent of the population — more than 300 people — involved. The town has 150 shellfish farms, 162 grants, and 136 grant holders, Civetta said.
Yet the department’s budget, at $382,137, is one of the smallest in town hall, according to fiscal 2025 budget documents. The only departments asking for less money this year are the town clerk’s office and the community development dept.
Civetta said the department has expanded its services since she became constable in 2017. With a growing recreational shellfishery as well as more frequent grant lotteries and extensions, “we’ve seen an increase in paperwork,” she said.
The budget for fiscal 2019 created a part-time summer deputy constable to help oversee recreational shellfishing. In 2020, the department increased that position to full-time, Civetta said.
Last year, Civetta went to the finance committee to expand the new position to three-quarter-time — full-time in the summer and part-time in the winter.
In her fiscal 2024 budget request, delivered early in 2023, Civetta included as an objective of the department: “Hire and train a new recreational Deputy Shellfish Constable with year-round responsibilities.” She requested a $17,000 increase in the department’s salary budget.
That request was recommended by the finance committee, approved by the select board at its March 7 meeting, and approved by town meeting on April 29 as part of the town’s total operating budget.
According to the job description, the deputy shellfish constable is responsible for recreational patrol, participating in propagation efforts, and supporting monitoring and record keeping.
Members of the shellfishing community, and several members of the shellfish advisory board, argue that the creation of a fourth deputy constable is excessive.
“I do not think you need any more help,” said Diane Brunt, a vocal opponent of the position, at a July 13 select board meeting. “I think it is crazy how much help is going to the shellfish dept.”
Shellfish advisory board member Brad Morse called the shellfish dept. “overstaffed and overfunded” at a meeting of that board on Jan. 18.
“I need the help,” Civetta told the advisory board at that meeting. “I can’t keep up with things — it just piles up and piles up.”
Civetta told the Independent that the department has struggled with a backlog of almost 50 commercial shellfishing licenses waiting to be renewed or transferred.
Nick Sirucek, another shellfisherman and member of the shellfish advisory board, supported Civetta’s position.
“I tend to believe the shellfish constable about what the department needs,” Sirucek said. “People forget how much the industry has expanded over the past 10 years. I think some people are living in the past about how big the industry actually is.”
Select Board Approvals
After the three-quarter-time deputy was approved at town meeting, the department advertised the position but got no applications, Waldo said.
“The common response we were getting was, ‘We want a full-time position,’ ” he told the select board on Oct. 17.
In a memo included in the June 6 “Town Administrator’s report” to the select board, Civetta wrote: “We worked with the Town Administrator to increase our part-time winter position to full-time in order to take on Principal Clerk shellfish-related responsibilities, such as grant licenses and winter shellfish permit sales.”
The principal clerk position, which kept records of grant licenses and permits, had been vacant since Jeanne MacLaughlin left in March 2022, over a year earlier.
Waldo had hired assistant treasurer-collector Christine Young as principal clerk in April 2023, but she was not officially promoted until August when Waldo found her replacement, he said.
Waldo told the Independent that then-chair of the select board Ryan Curley read the town administrator’s report and believed that Waldo could not reallocate those job duties without the approval of the select board.
On July 13, the select board unanimously approved a reorganization of the principal clerk’s job that transferred its shellfish-related duties to the deputy shellfish constable.
According to Waldo, the town then readvertised the deputy shellfish constable job as a full-time year-round position — a difference of $10,000 per year — using unexpended money from the shellfish dept.’s budget.
Civetta announced the job opening in a memo to the shellfishing community on Sept. 13. The outrage that resulted led to a second select board hearing on the position on Oct. 17.
At that meeting, Curley accused Waldo of violating the town charter, which states that “the town administrator may, with the approval of the select board, establish, reorganize, consolidate, or abolish any positions under the town’s direction and supervision.”
Curley claimed the board had voted on the reorganization of the principal clerk position at its July 13 meeting but not the deputy shellfish constable position.
Select board member Tim Sayre said that he didn’t remember a vote approving the deputy shellfish constable’s change to full-time. “I am not going to say it doesn’t exist, but I am going to say I’m not sure it does exist,” Sayre said.
Brunt and Morse went on the attack. Brunt called it a “dishonest hiring practice.” Morse said that “a suspension of this hire and an investigation of the constable and the town’s hiring practices is called for. Wrongdoing has occurred.”
But select board chair Barbara Carboni, a lawyer, said that Waldo had acted within his authority as town administrator. “This is a staffing decision made by the town administrator,” she said. “To the extent that it needed to be approved, it was brought to us, and we approved it.”
Carboni said that not all staffing decisions need to go to the select board for approval, including increasing a position’s hours. “We hire the town manager to manage the town, and that includes most staffing decisions,” she said.
“It is really hard to make this town move forward,” Waldo said at the Oct. 17 meeting. “At some point, you have to trust the town administrator.”
The select board voted to approve the full-time position again but made its decision contingent on a legal opinion from town counsel. Curley abstained, making the vote 4-0-1.
The Legal Opinion
Town counsel addressed her opinion to Waldo, who forwarded it to the select board on Nov. 13. It read: “You have the authority to update job descriptions to add duties and to convert a position to a full-time position as an exercise of your general personnel authority, provided sufficient funds have been appropriated.”
The full-time deputy shellfish constable position was advertised again on Dec. 27, and applications closed on Jan. 19, according to Civetta.
Despite the legal opinion, some shellfishermen have continued to insist that Civetta and Waldo acted improperly.
Morse wrote to Carboni on Jan. 24 that town staff had provided KP Law with “inaccurate, fraudulent information with which to form this opinion.”
In an email to the Independent, Brunt said that the position had been changed “behind the backs of all boards and committees.”
Waldo said he believes that people are angry at Civetta for doing her job.
“They are going to fight tooth and nail over anything she does, and that is because her role is enforcement,” Waldo said. “They were used to not having enforcement before she began, and now that they do, they don’t like it.”
Waldo also said the controversy helps explain why he resigned.
“Every move you try to make as administration, it requires so much additional unnecessary effort,” Waldo said. “I have been unable to do the job I was hired to do.”
