TRURO — After serving two years as town clerk, Kaci Fullerton packed up and moved out of her town hall office on Friday, May 26, her last day of work. According to Town Manager Darrin Tangeman, Fullerton left for a job that would allow her to work remotely and “not have to deal with a political environment that can often be contentious.”
There was no official announcement of her departure, and the Independent’s efforts to contact Fullerton for comment have been unsuccessful. As of Tuesday, June 6, 11 days after her last day at town hall, there was no indication on the town website that she had resigned; she was still listed as town clerk on the staff directory page.
Tangeman said the town plans to hire a new clerk in time for a fall special town meeting. In the meantime, he said, “The biggest impact is that we can’t certify marriage and death certificates. We’ll have to ask Provincetown to do that.”
But Provincetown Town Clerk Elizabeth Paine told the Independent on Tuesday that “we’re not allowed to certify anything for other towns. They have to have somebody in Truro doing that.” Paine said that under state law, only town clerks can certify “vital records”: birth, marriage, and death certificates.
Paine added that when her predecessor, Emmett Catanese, announced he was leaving, Provincetown appointed an acting town clerk, so that there would be no gap in the town’s ability to certify vital records.
Truro Select Board chair Kristen Reed told the Independent she thought the effect of Fullerton’s departure would be minimal. “Our staff are well-trained and possess the necessary skills to ensure the smooth continuation of our services,” Reed wrote in an email. “Darrin had taken appropriate measures to distribute the workload effectively and ensure that the transition is seamless.”
Holly Ballard-Gardner said that the town clerk is the key person at town hall for the cemetery commission, which Ballard-Gardner chairs. The clerk is responsible for researching and recording cemetery deeds and burials. Ballard-Gardner and Fullerton had been working on the digitization of cemetery records, part of a larger project Fullerton had been spearheading to preserve town documents.
“Her absence is a great loss for us,” Ballard-Gardner wrote.
Tangeman said he had known for some time that Fullerton was seeking another position. “I served as a reference for her,” he said.
“Town clerk is a managerial position, not a department head,” Tangeman said when asked about the lack of public notice of Fullerton’s resignation. “It all depends on the position and how long the person’s been with the town. We appreciated what Kaci did, but she had been with the town for a short tenure, and we did our own internal appreciation for her.”
Tangeman said that Fullerton is “taking a job with another organization” that he would not name. It “supports local governments internationally,” he said.
Reed wrote that “this opportunity not only offers her a higher salary but also provides her with more time to spend with her family, which was an important consideration for her.”
Reed added that the lack of an announcement “was a mutual decision between Kaci and the organization. In some cases, employees prefer to keep their departure private until their final day. While it may not be standard practice in every situation, it is not entirely unusual either.”
Fullerton was employed in the U.S. Army before winning a veterans local government management fellowship in Woodland Park, Colo. in 2020. Her stint there coincided with Tangeman’s being the city manager of Woodland Park.
“Kaci and I have known each other for a long time,” Tangeman said. “We will remain friends.”
The only other town hall departure in the last six months, he said, was Molly Stevens of the finance dept., who left to become the clerk-treasurer in Centerville. “There’s no significant turnover in Truro, although there appears to be some rumors that there are, which is what I’m trying to clear up,” Tangeman said.
Until 2021, when Fullerton was hired, town clerk was not considered a full-time position. Unlike Wellfleet and Provincetown, Truro does not employ an assistant town clerk. “We’re the smallest town on the Cape,” Tangeman said.
“One of the things we’ve thought about is giving additional duties to one of our administrative assistants as an assistant town clerk so the person could be prepared to fill in when the clerk was gone or on vacation,” Tangeman said. “Right now, we’re focused just on rehiring the position.”
