Meetings are held remotely. From wellfleet-ma.gov, hover over a date on the calendar on the right of the screen and click on the meeting you’re interested in to find information about how to view and take part remotely.

Thursday, April 29

• 95 Lawrence Road Task Force, 4 p.m.
• Select Board, 6 p.m.

Monday, May 3

• Advisory Board of the Council on Aging, 10 a.m.
• Conservation Commission, 4 p.m.

Wednesday, May 5

• Conservation Commission, 4 p.m.

Conversation Starters

Richard Blakeley’s Easement

The select board, state Sen. Julian Cyr, and Rep. Sarah Peake are all trying to help lifelong Wellfleet resident and shellfisherman Richard Blakeley retain access to the shellfish processing building at his family’s home.

Blakeley has not been able to drive his truck to his shellfish building, where he processes clams and oysters, since the Dept. of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) began renovations in March on the Cape Cod Rail Trail parking lot on LeCount Hollow Road.

Blakeley had been using the bike trail parking lot for years. He became so upset when construction started that on March 26 he threw a traffic cone at a laborer’s truck and was arrested for malicious destruction of property and disturbing the peace. Blakeley later told the Independent he was ashamed of that.

Sympathy for Blakeley has been abundant. His neighbors and friends Philippe Rispoli, who owns the PB Boulangerie Bistro across the street, and Rispoli’s wife, the attorney Eliza Cox, hired J.W. Carney to represent Blakeley in court. Carney is best known for representing the gangster James “Whitey” Bulger. Select board member Ryan Curley has proposed a town meeting article that would give Blakeley’s family an easement over the state-owned land.

Because DCR requires an easement, said Patrick Johnson, Cyr’s chief of staff, Peake and Cyr are crafting a bill that would allow a taking or granting of state land to Blakeley’s family. It must pass by a two-thirds vote of both the House and Senate and be signed by the governor. That sounds like a big deal but is rather routine, Johnson said. Because the land will go to a private individual and not the town, a town meeting article may not be necessary, Johnson said. —K.C. Myers

Slick Could Be an Interim

Left without a town accountant or administrator after Heather Michaud and Maria Broadbent’s one-two-punch resignations last week, the select board moved at its April 27 meeting to replenish town hall’s ranks. After confirmation by unanimous vote — though with member Janet Reinhart absent — Fire Chief Richard Pauley will don a new hat: acting town administrator, effective immediately.

The select board offered no hints about whom they were considering for the interim town administrator who must take over from Pauley after 90 days. In interviews, board members declined to comment. But listed on the board’s April 28 agenda was an “interview and discussion with possible Town Administrator candidate” — directly below “Transfer 95 Lawrence Rd RFP from TA Maria Broadbent to ATA Rebecca Slick.”

Assistant Town Administrator Slick began work in Wellfleet on April 1. A North Adams native and graduate of UMass Amherst’s Isenberg School of Management, she spent two years as a Northwestern Mutual financial representative before beginning her town government career.

From September 2015 to November 2016, she was the administrative assistant to the building inspector in Lee. She left that job to become town planner in Dalton, where she stayed for five years. Beginning in March 2020, she also served as the administrative assistant to the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission’s health agent.

And for 11 years — from August 2009 to May 2020 — she held a second job as a server and bartender at the Olde Heritage Tavern in Lenox, where supervisor John McNinch described her as “just a great girl.”

“She was very excited about the job in Wellfleet,” McNinch said. “She’s dedicated, she’s hardworking. She’s got a good head on her shoulders.”

Slick did not respond to requests for comment.

“I feel that I would be an asset to a small Town like Wellfleet,” she wrote in her application for the assistant town administrator position, obtained by the Independent. “I am a fast learner, and I especially get along well with others, and thoroughly enjoy working as a team. I feel that small Massachusetts Towns need passionate planners and dedicated staff to help stimulate growth and development while keeping the strong, beautiful characteristics that make up the Commonwealth.” —Josephine de La Bruyère