WELLFLEET — During Rich Waldo’s final two weeks as town administrator, he hired Wellfleet’s first-ever town planner and a new town accountant — a key municipal position that had been vacant for more than 13 months.

But resistance to those hires from two select board members — Ryan Curley and Tim Sayre — shows a lack of clarity about the town administrator’s authority. Waldo has cited the select board’s lack of support as one reason he resigned after just 18 months.

Other members of the select board pointedly criticized Curley’s behavior, accusing him of intruding on the administrator’s authority and making town hall a place where no one would want to work. Curley said he was just doing his job.

According to Wellfleet’s charter, the town administrator is responsible for appointing department heads and other staff. The select board may disapprove a hire within 14 days of the appointment, the charter says.

At the select board’s Jan. 30 meeting, Curley questioned the appointment of Suzanne Moquin as town accountant. According to Moquin’s résumé, she was the finance director in Carver for two years after serving nine years as Abington’s accountant, finance director, and assistant town manager.

At its next meeting on Feb. 6, the board discussed Waldo’s appointment of Beth Pyles as town planner, a position created at last April’s annual town meeting. Pyles joined the town staff in November as conservation agent before resigning toward the end of January to take the planning job. Waldo said that Pyles, a town planner and land use attorney, was “overqualified” for the conservation agent position and had been fielding competing town planner offers before accepting Waldo’s.

According to her résumé, Pyles has worked in land-use planning for more than 20 years.

Curley said on Jan. 30 that he could not support the hiring of Moquin, and he complained on Feb. 6 that the board had not been apprised of the recruitment process for the town planner position.

But other board members said that recruitment is not in the select board’s purview.

According to Waldo and several select board members, Curley handed out copies of a news article from the Carver Reporter at the Jan. 30 meeting. It detailed a delay in free cash certification in Carver and Abington during Moquin’s tenures there.

“I cannot support this,” Curley said of Moquin’s appointment.

According to Waldo, he and the select board received an email two days later from Richard LaFond, the current town administrator in Webster and former town administrator in Abington and Carver. LaFond was “upset by the way the board proceeded to question Moquin’s integrity in a public setting,” Waldo told the Independent.

“Wellfleet is very fortunate to have a town accountant with extensive knowledge and experience,” LaFond wrote. There were no concerns among town officials about the delayed certification in Abington, he said. “This childish attempt to assign blame for a matter that wasn’t even a problem has indeed hurt her professionally.”

At the select board’s Feb. 6 meeting, Curley questioned whether Pyles’s priorities as town planner would align with the select board’s goal of improving the town’s affordable housing inventory. “We talked a number of times about making sure that the applicant is aligned with the goals we seek,” said Curley.

Board member Tim Sayre appeared to back up Curley’s objections. He reminded the board of its power to disapprove new hires.

“We have less than 15 days as a board to say we don’t want the offer extended,” said Sayre, “and we don’t have another meeting for 14 days.”

“I don’t have the information to make an informed decision,” Curley said. “It is very distressing that there was nobody on that interview who was experienced with the functions of that position.”

Select board chair Barbara Carboni, who is the town planner and land-use counsel for Truro, told the Independent that Pyles’s experience was “quite analogous” to her own. She disputed Curley’s proposed line of questioning of Pyles.

“It isn’t necessary to interrogate somebody about what their approach is when the staff carries out the policies determined by the select board,” said Carboni. “There is absolutely no requirement in the charter for any member of the select board to be involved in interviewing any position,” she added.

Other select board members accused Curley of overstepping his authority.

“I don’t understand this penchant for wanting to have some larger role in the hiring process of people we are not authorized to hire,” said board member Michael DeVasto.

Curley told the Independent that he disagreed. “It is within the authority of the board to disapprove an appointment, and it needs the information to make an informed decision,” he said.

But Carboni said that Curley’s actions were an “intrusion into the town administrator’s authority. More problematic than that was that neither the town administrator nor the candidate watching the meeting was prepared for this public display.”

“I want to make sure that the person we hire for these positions is right for the town,” Curley told the Independent.

Vice chair John Wolf said that such discussions made Wellfleet look like an unappealing place to work. “They watch this stuff, and they have to ask themselves at some point, ‘Why would I want to come and work here?’ ” he told the board.

“One hundred percent,” interjected Assistant Town Administrator Silvio Genao, who resigned after just three months on the job. His last day at town hall is Feb. 15.

“We are trying to put together a good team before we go,” said Waldo on Feb. 9, his last day, “but it feels like every step of the way the board, and in particular a few board members, just want to self-destruct any progress. The manager needs to manage. Hopefully the board will get that message soon.”

The Administrator’s Role

Wellfleet is the only Outer Cape town with a town administrator — Eastham, Truro, and Provincetown all have town managers.

The distinction between manager and administrator is fuzzy, according to Adam Chapdelaine, executive director of the Mass. Municipal Association. “The title of town manager and town administrator are, in practice, interchangeable,” Chapdelaine wrote in an email to the Independent.

The authority of a town manager or administrator is determined largely by the town’s charter, he said.

Carboni agreed. “You really have to look at the charter in each town to see what those powers are,” she told the Independent.

For example, Carboni said, the charters in Truro and Wellfleet lay out similar authority over staffing. “Both the town administrator and town manager are required under their respective charters to obtain the select board’s approval for reorganization of a job,” she said, referring to the controversy in Wellfleet over the town administrator’s power to increase a deputy shellfish constable position to full time.

According to Eastham Town Manager Jacqueline Beebe, managers may have more authority over decisions like hiring and contracts. They are generally seen as possessing the authority to make decisions without consulting the select board, she said.

In 2020, Eastham conducted a review of its charter and decided to rename its chief administrative officer’s role from town administrator to town manager.

Sean Cronin, senior deputy commissioner of the state Dept. of Local Services, assessed the proposed charter and affirmed Eastham’s change, writing that the town manager title generally “enables better oversight and accountability.” Cronin wrote that the difference between town administrator and manager “can be purely semantic.”

More towns are choosing to have managers as chief administrative officers. In 2022, WBUR reported that 288 of 351 towns in Massachusetts had town managers.

“The select board’s role is to provide guidance, policy, town goals,” said Provincetown Town Manager Alex Morse. “Then it’s up to the town manager to implement the town goals.”

Though Morse is not required to consult the select board on every hiring decision, he said he has found it useful in order to “make sure we are aligned around our goals.”

In fall 2023, Morse decided to change the town’s housing specialist position into a housing director role. He went to the select board “not necessarily for approval but for guidance.”

Morse said that the greater authority of the town manager allows him to accomplish more without the board having to vet every choice. Otherwise, he would be “waiting for other people to make decisions,” he said.