WELLFLEET — Jeanne Maclauchlan did not want her picture in the newspaper, but perhaps many people know her already. She retired from her job as the town’s principal clerk last October after 22 years. Now she is vying for a seat on the select board against incumbent Ryan Curley because, she said, she does not like the way the town is being run.
“I don’t like the way the town is all of a sudden,” Maclauchlan said. “There’s no money, everyone keeps asking for more, and it’s getting harder to live here. I feel sorry for the taxpayers.
“There are too many projects that everybody wants to get done,” said Maclauchlan. “Instead of jumping on something because it seems like a great idea at the time, we need to really look into how good a deal it might be before spending millions of dollars on it.”
She pointed to the purchase of Maurice’s Campground, which the town bought for $6.5 million after approval from voters at a September special town meeting, as “a big hit to taxpayers.”
If voted onto the select board, Maclauchlan said she would focus on “less spending.” One area to cut back on expenditures, she said, was the hiring of new staff.
“I’m not sure that the demand for new staff is a valid demand right now. I think we need to back off hiring people,” Maclauchlan said.
“We can’t keep spending huge salaries on people who aren’t qualified, and we can’t keep getting temporary people with huge salaries to try to stanch the bleeding,” she added. She declined to identify which positions she was referring to.
According to the town’s website, there are two vacant full-time positions that need to be filled: a town accountant and finance director role that has been vacant since accountant Nick Robertson left in early December after only nine months in the job, and building commissioner, a position James Badera was hired to fill in December 2021. Badera resigned on April 14, according to select board chair Ryan Curley. There are 13 additional vacant seasonal and temporary positions listed on the site.
Three articles on this year’s warrant would add four new positions to the town’s roster, to be funded through Proposition 2½ overrides. They include a housing and Community Preservation Act specialist at a salary of $115,000, a water superintendent for $145,000 to oversee wastewater projects and the town’s water enterprise fund, and two new fire department staff for a combined $221,400.
Regarding the upcoming town meeting warrant, Maclauchlan would not say which articles she supports or opposes. “I haven’t given it a good look, though, so I can’t comment,” she said.
The town’s overreliance on overrides and debt exclusions was one of the state Dept. of Revenue’s “causes for financial concern” it presented in a report to the select board at its Feb. 28 meeting.
Maclauchlan said that blame for the financial fiasco that spurred the report “comes down to the board of selectmen because they are the ones that should be paying more attention. They had all the information right there at their fingertips. If nothing else, I will pay attention.”
As for the Dept. of Revenue’s recommendations, Maclauchlan said that she had not read them and that she did not believe the DOR had issued them. “I honestly don’t believe it was the DOR,” she said. “I just don’t know enough about who did the analysis.”
One thing she does know, she said, is that the town’s auditing contract, which has been held by Powers & Sullivan for the past 27 years, needs to go out to bid again. “Things aren’t being put out to bid when they need to be,” Maclauchlan said.
In 2022, the town did seek another auditor without success. Powers & Sullivan submitted the only bid that year. “We don’t have a good reputation,” she said. “That’s what is so annoying because it didn’t use to be this way.
“I came to Wellfleet because I love Wellfleet,” said Maclauchlan, who moved here from Rochester, N.Y. in 1999. “But it has changed tremendously in the last 20 years, and I don’t think for the better. I would like to try to get Wellfleet back to how it was.”
She said that the town could get there “with hard work and less pay.”
The annual town election will take place on Monday, May 1 from noon to 7 p.m. at the Adult Community Center, 715 Old King’s Highway.
