WELLFLEET — The Town Administrator Screening Committee has identified three finalists for the job, according to a March 11 memo sent by committee chair Bruce Bierhans to the select board. There were 32 applicants for the position.
Richard Waldo, director of Provincetown’s dept. of public works; Jayne Wellman, business administrator for the town of Reading; and Jason Silva, a former Marblehead town administrator are the three finalists.
Charles Sumner has been serving as Wellfleet’s interim town administrator since May 2021, after Maria Broadbent resigned in April, only nine months into her three-year contract.
In December, the town chose Richard White of Groux-White Consulting to handle the search. He had been Provincetown’s consultant for the search that landed Alex Morse in the town manager job there. According to Bierhans’s memo to the select board, on Feb. 25 White recommended 12 candidates for further review.
In an interview, Bierhans said his committee, whose other members were Kathy Granlund, Arthur Parker, Fire Chief Richard Pauley, and Sumner (Police Chief Michael Hurley was an alternate), conducted remote interviews with nine candidates. They chose four to interview in person.
“We were looking for candidates with excellent credentials as managers and consensus builders,” Bierhans said. “All three finalists have the skills necessary to address efficiently and competently the Wellfleet financial situation.”
In an interview on Monday, Waldo said, “If you’d asked me if I wanted to run 25 years ago, I probably would’ve said, ‘No way.’ But over the years, I’ve realized I’m a lifelong learner.”
Waldo’s experience includes 10 years directing the Provincetown DPW, where he oversees eight departments, 40 full-time staff, and a combined annual budget of approximately $12 million, according to his resume.
Waldo is in his final year of a master’s degree program in public administration at Suffolk University.
An Outer Cape resident for 17 years, Waldo’s official residence is in Truro, in accordance with his job’s guidelines, though Waldo says he spends most of his days and nights in Wellfleet, where he and his girlfriend are raising their two children. Outer Cape residency was rare among the candidates for the job — all but two live off Cape, said Bierhans.
Waldo’s experience managing budgets at the DPW and his personal knowledge of Wellfleet inform his plans to stabilize Wellfleet’s finances, he said.
“I have an engineer’s mindset with attention to detail and a methodical process,” Waldo said. “Finances need to be transparent in the public eye until we can regain their trust. You need to set a culture of expectations.”
Waldo said he wouldn’t “make any first-day changes.”
“I think my first period will be to observe and learn,” he said. “Learn the workings. Learn what the desires of the community are. Learn about the pressing issues and start to slowly implement solutions.”
A Management Mission
Jayne Wellman has fond memories of bringing her children to the Outer Cape and keeps photos of a Wellfleet sunrise and sunset in her living room, she said during a phone interview Monday.
Wellman is the Reading Town Business Administrator, a position she has held for five years. She manages the town’s insurance risk, analyzes department budgets, and works with the town’s finance director and treasurer, according to her resume.
Wellman has also served as a Tewksbury Select Board member since 2019, as Tewksbury Town Moderator since 2017, and as a member of the Tewksbury School Committee since 2009.
Asked about Wellfleet’s financial difficulties, Wellman said, “When I joined the committee, the school district was in a similar financial situation. I worked closely with the Tewksbury town manager, and we never needed to pass a Proposition 2½ override. Now we have an $11.4-million stabilization account,” she said.
As Reading’s business administrator, Wellman is involved in budgeting and she prides herself on presenting financial information “with a narrative that is easy for folks to understand.”
As for Wellfleet’s path to financial stability, Wellman said, “Spending less than 100 percent of your revenues so you have free cash to put into a stabilization account, and avoiding debt exclusions to fund routine annual costs such as police cruisers” would be key practices.
North Shore Experience
Jason Silva served for three years as Marblehead Town Administrator, where his duties included overseeing day-to-day town affairs, preparing the annual operating budget and capital improvement plan, and planning town warrants and the select board policy agenda, according to his resume.
In response to interview requests, Silva wrote via text that he was not available, but he noted, “I’ve been able to learn a lot about the community over the last month. It’s clearly a great town with great people and committed leaders and staff.”
In a letter to the screening committee, Silva wrote that his town administrator accomplishments included finalizing Marblehead’s housing production plan, updating the town’s harbor and ADA transition plans, and partnering with the Collins Center at UMass “to create a more complete financial forecasting model.”
In January 2022, Silva resigned from the administrator position in Marblehead, a move that surprised select board members, according to the Salem News. He has not yet stated publicly the reason for his resignation.
Marblehead Select Board chair Jackie Belf-Becker said Silva’s departure would be “a tremendous loss for the town, as he started so many new initiatives,” the Salem News reported.
Previously, Silva had served as chief of staff for state Sen. Joan Lovely and as Salem’s director of municipal operations and capital improvements. Silva completed Suffolk University’s master’s program in public administration in 2018, according to his resume.
In his memo to the select board, Bierhans wrote that “to a person, the committee is encouraged with the quality of finalists.” He invited the select board to seek committee members’ individual views.
The select board will publicly interview the three finalists on Monday, March 21 at 1 p.m. in the Council on Aging conference room.
