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Wellfleet select board

    TOWN ELECTIONS

    Josh Yeston Wants to Be Wellfleet’s Champion

    The select board candidate says he’d use AI to improve town government

    By

    WELLFLEET — When voters head to the polls on May 5 to fill two select board seats, they will find only two candidates on the ballot. Barbara Carboni, who has served on the select board since 2022, is running for re-election. Josh Yeston, an advertising executive who moved to Wellfleet two years ago, is the other candidate.

    Josh Yeston, an advertising executive, is running for one of two select board seats to be filled in this spring’s town election. Barbara Carboni is running for re-election. (Photo courtesy Josh Yeston)

    Michael DeVasto announced on Feb. 18 that he was not running for re-election.

    Yeston, who maintains a house where he previously lived in Bedford, N.Y., told the Independent that he has visited Wellfleet since he was a child and now lives in a house on Griffins Island Road that his grandfather bought in the 1970s. He said that he and his wife, Emily, who is CEO and co-founder of the skin care brand Doré and a board member of Twenty Summers in Provincetown, began staying in town for six-month stretches in 2020.

    That’s when Yeston, who is 36, said he began following town politics online. In the four years since then, he said, he has watched every select board meeting as well as most conservation commission, planning board, and zoning board of appeals meetings. He was chair of the Wellfleet Cable Internet and Cellular Service Advisory Committee, which he joined in 2023.

    In that role, Yeston oversaw the creation of Wellfleet’s oceanfront Wi-Fi network that spans Lecount Hollow, White Crest, and Cahoon Hollow beaches. The goal was to improve access to emergency services, but the project proved controversial among beachgoers who preferred that the beaches remain oases separate from online life and pointed out that the town had already installed direct landline access from the beaches to emergency services.

    The cable advisory committee also supported Verizon’s application for a state grant to provide Fios access to more remote areas of town, including to Yeston’s own house in the National Seashore.

    Yeston described himself as action-oriented. “I’m very good at taking people’s passions and people’s goals and helping them put together a plan of action,” he said.

    Yeston works as a creative director for hire. His company is called Josh Robert And Yeston Inc., and his title is Whatever You Want Director.

    His website says that “Josh was a creative leader for HBO’s SXSWestworld activation which was called ‘One of the best publicity stunts of the 21st century.’ ”

    The reason he wants to be on the select board, Yeston said, is that he loves helping others. “That’s what fills my cup,” he said. “My passion is to be somebody else’s champion.” He added, “I don’t have an agenda. My agenda is supporting the town.”

    If elected, Yeston will turn to a list of his top priorities: improving government transparency, addressing the housing shortage, and identifying new sources of capital for the town.

    Artificial intelligence could be used as a search engine to identify grants, said Yeston, who would like to create a task force to find and apply for grants for the town. “There’s a tremendous amount of funding at the state level,” he said. “The state wants to support Wellfleet. We are a brand name in the Commonwealth.”

    As for improving transparency, Yeston wants to see AI tools like ChatGPT used to summarize municipal meetings. “The power of AI allows anyone to distill three-to-four-hour meetings into pages of summarized notes,” he said. The notes, if vetted by a designated person who had been there, he said, would help the public understand what happens in town government. He was not sure exactly how this would be done or who would be responsible for vetting the summaries, but he suggested that could be decided in a public forum.

    To make town officials easier to talk to, Yeston said, he envisions holding office hours. “I think it’s important for people to be able to engage with their public leaders outside of formal meetings,” he said. He would also encourage town administration to create a weekly newsletter to keep the public up to date on government matters.

    Yeston said that he wants to make housing more affordable and to alter zoning to allow for more mixed-use development. “Wellfleet needs to be a year-round community,” he said. “We cannot be just a resort community.”

    At the same time, however, he said he is “deeply conflicted” about the residential tax exemption, the program that makes year-round residency more affordable by offering homeowners who live here an exemption on a portion of their property taxes. “I think we need to think really critically about having a very strong reason to increase it,” he said. It’s a problem, he said, because he feels part-time residents have little say in the matter.

    Yeston also wants to renegotiate the National Park Service’s annual payment to the town in lieu of taxes for its property, which he said is currently based on 1961 land values. “Two-thirds of our town is protected land,” he said. “We can’t build on it, yet they don’t pay their fair share for that benefit.” He said he would lobby the town’s representatives in Congress to push for this.

    Yeston also has ideas for restructuring town government. He said that he would be in favor of establishing term limits for boards and would support a measure that would give the select board the authority to remove a member of another board or committee.

    Yeston said he’d like to see the town ramp up its recruiting to address staff turnover. “All it takes is a Google search, if you’re a prospective employee, to understand that there’s been a lot of turnover,” he said. “It will take a proactive approach to recruit the best talent and assure them that they have job security.” He said he also wants to discuss with department heads how AI could make their jobs easier.

    Yeston said that many people had encouraged him to run for select board, including current board member Sheila Lyons. He said he would bring a level head to the select board and feels he could work well with everyone on the board.

    “It’s very hard to raise my blood pressure,” he said.

    Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article, published in print on March 13, incorrectly reported that Yeston lives in a house that his grandfather built in the 1970s. The house was built in 1959; his grandfather bought it in the 1970s. Also, the state grant to provide high-speed internet service to remote areas of town did not go to the cable advisory committee as previously reported; it went to Verizon, with support from the committee.

    ON THE WARRANT

    Wellfleet Special Town Meeting to Consider a Series of Tidy-Ups

    Money for marina and town offices and changes in the way town meeting works

    By

    WELLFLEET — The special town meeting set for Oct. 21 may be far from special. Town Administrator Tom Guerino told the select board on Sept. 17 that what voters will find on the warrant will be “fairly perfunctory.”

    The 19-article warrant is mostly about keeping the house tidy. Charter and bylaw amendments proffered by Town Moderator Dan Silverman seek to change the look of future town meetings. Also on the warrant are financial articles related to errors made during fiscal 2025 budgeting; a transfer from the Marina Enterprise Fund for repairs at the marina; and expenses related to converting the newly acquired Gestalt International Study Center into town offices.

    Silverman will be on hand at a Wellfleet Community Forum on Tuesday, Oct. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Adult Community Center for a warrant discussion. The special town meeting itself will start at 6 p.m. in the elementary school gym.

    Marina and Gestalt Center

    Article 2 would authorize transfers of $57,300 from available funds, including $12,300 “to correct errors or omissions in the original FY2025 budget,” according to the warrant. “Something was missed, going from hand to hand to hand over the budget period,” Guerino told the select board.

    Article 3, on marina operations, would transfer $143,000 from retained marina earnings to cover staffing and overtime expenses after a slew of resignations earlier this summer in the harbormaster’s office. The funds would also go to fixing “serious and some dangerous conditions at the Pier and Marina,” according to the warrant: $53,250 would go to staffing and $50,000 for repairs.

    Last month, Fire Chief Joe Capello banned fuel trucks from the L-pier after he discovered it in disrepair. Interim Harbormaster Stuart Smith told the select board on Sept. 17 that there are other safety hazards on the pier including “fairly significant” electrical deficiencies. According to Smith, lighting along the pier has gone out, and the power pedestals along the marina where vessels tie up don’t work. “Some are frozen, some don’t work, some are missing,” he said.

    The pump-out boat, which handles boaters’ sewage, is “well beyond its useful life,” Smith said, adding that it “doesn’t lend itself to staying afloat.” The town is seeking a grant from the Div. of Marine Fisheries to help pay for the boat in addition to $40,000 from the marina enterprise fund.

    After voters approved the $1.7-million purchase of the Gestalt Center for office space at a June special town meeting, they will be asked in Article 4 for another $36,500 to provide “a basic operational budget” for the facility for the rest of fiscal 2025.

    In Article 5, Guerino is looking for funds to pay an administrative assistant for the health and planning departments; $40,000 would cover the rest of fiscal 2025 if the town can fill the job now. Guerino told the select board about the need for additional support staff at its Sept. 17 meeting: “You have ramped up an awful lot of projects and an awful lot of expectations,” he said. “It’s starting to show. We are going to lose people.”

    Town Meeting Changes

    Among the town meeting changes Silverman hopes to make is a charter amendment that would establish a regular fall town meeting in addition to the traditional spring session. The spring meeting would focus on finances, while the fall meeting would focus on zoning and bylaw changes, he proposed.

    Silverman said that nothing in the charter change would rule out discussion of either topic at either meeting. His aim is to keep town meetings shorter in the hope that more people would attend, he said.

    Articles 6 and 7 would amend the town charter and bylaws to cut down on the number of town meeting warrants printed. The bylaw amendment would set the number at 30 percent of registered voters in town or roughly 950 copies. The reasons are both environmental and economic, Silverman said: “It’s expensive to mail.”

    Under the proposed charter change, the town administrator would mail a postcard in lieu of the full warrant to all registered voters with a notice of where to pick up a physical copy, which would include the library, post offices, town hall, and Adult Community Center.

    Silverman’s third proposal would change quorum rules so that the minimum 6 percent of registered voters in attendance is required only at the beginning of the meeting and not throughout it. In some years, when the quorum has been lost as people straggle out over the course of long meetings, Silverman has had to call a recess and ask townspeople to return to complete the meeting the next night.

    Another dual charter-bylaw amendment proposal would move election day to the third Tuesday in May, which “allows Town Meeting to be moved to early May, giving more time for the Town to receive the budget of the regional school district,” the article states. Previously, the annual town election has taken place on the Monday following the April town meeting.

    The warrant notes that the charter amendments require a two-thirds majority vote at town meeting and a majority vote at the annual town election, which won’t happen until spring.

    Other articles seek approval for road-widening easements related to the Herring River Restoration Project and the raising of low-lying roads near Bound Brook Island, as well as two articles related to go-aheads on leasing town land at the Adult Community Center for the Wellfleet Food Pantry.

    SECRET SESSION

    Minutes Reveal Deep Confusion on Select Board

    Curley’s email to Waldo led to a schism and reorganization

    By

    WELLFLEET — More than a year after a closed select board meeting led to a schism among board members and former Town Administrator Rich Waldo, the mostly unredacted minutes of that meeting have finally been released. They reveal a remarkably confused board whose members did not even know what they were supposed to be discussing in secret.

    The minutes were published following the state attorney general’s office ruling last month that the meeting and the release of heavily redacted minutes of that session violated the Open Meeting Law. The newly released minutes, with just one paragraph censored, outline the origins of a conflict that ultimately led to the board’s reorganization and Waldo’s resignation.

    The June 27, 2023 executive session, closed to the public, had been held “to hear complaints against a public official or employee,” according to the meeting’s agenda. But the unredacted minutes, along with emails between town officials leading up to the meeting, which were obtained by the Independent, reveal confusion over who the complaints were actually about.

    Then-chair Ryan Curley thought the complaints were about Waldo. In fact, they were about the select board itself.

    While staff members initially wrote to Curley requesting an executive session to discuss their complaints, the meeting revolved almost entirely around Waldo. That was because of an email Curley sent to Waldo on June 19, a week after receiving the request from town staff.

    According to the meeting minutes, the other board members believed that Curley’s email to Waldo amounted to an “ultimatum” demanding that Waldo resign or he would be fired. They saw the email, which Curley sent without approval from the board, as an abuse of power. Later, in open meetings, the board voted to replace Curley as chair with Barbara Carboni.

    Asking for ‘Open Conversations’

    During a meeting with department heads in early June, town staff told Waldo that they had complaints they wished to bring to the select board. Executive Assistant Rebekah Eldridge emailed Curley on June 12 asking for a meeting “where we can have open conversations,” according to a copy of the email obtained by the Independent. “Sooner rather than later would be in the best interest of everyone so we don’t lose more staff.”

    On June 19, Curley wrote to Waldo notifying him of his intent to hold an executive session to review complaints against Waldo. “Strictly as a personal opinion I think it would be in the town’s best interest to retain your services through at least the fall special town meeting,” Curley wrote. “I will give you thought [sic] the end of the day tomorrow to consider how you would like to proceed.”

    According to the executive session’s minutes, select board member Michael DeVasto said he received a call from Waldo the next morning describing Curley’s email and his intent to resign by the end of the day. DeVasto expressed shock “that an email like this would be sent to him without any interaction or approval from the rest of the board,” the minutes read. DeVasto called Curley’s email “reckless” and “inappropriate.”

    Eldridge told the board that she had requested a meeting to discuss complaints against the select board, not against Waldo. “It had nothing to do with Rich,” Eldridge told the Independent. “Most of the staff was behind him.” Eldridge thought that Curley had misunderstood her email and assumed that the complaints were about Waldo.

    According to an email sent to the board from Town Counsel Carolyn Murray of KP Law notifying them of the meeting, Murray also believed the complaints were about Waldo.

    “Certain department heads requested to meet with the Select Board to discuss issues related to the Town Administrator,” Murray wrote on June 19. “I think that all parties would prefer to come to a mutually acceptable agreement with respect to Mr. Waldo’s continued employment.”

    During the June 27 closed meeting, board members questioned Curley on whether there were specific complaints against Waldo. “He didn’t answer,” the minutes read. The question was asked again. “He stated he couldn’t say if there was a specific complaint. He stated there have been many over the past year,” the minutes say.

    In an interview with the Independent, Curley said he intended the meeting to be a preliminary discussion on how to handle complaints brought to the board by town staff. “It got turned around into something that it was not,” Curley said. “I wanted a way to identify legitimate issues that needed to be addressed.” Those issues, Curley said, were about both Waldo and the select board.

    Waldo declined to comment for this article, instead referring a reporter to his attorney, Bruce Bierhans. Curley’s email to Waldo and the following executive session, Bierhans said, “constituted an unsubstantiated and unsupported attack on Rich. Whether these actions were defamatory is still an open issue.”

    “We nearly lost a town administrator that day because of the chair’s unilateral action,” DeVasto stated during the meeting, according to the minutes.

    Six months later, Waldo submitted his resignation. At a select board meeting earlier in December, Director of Community Services Suzanne Grout Thomas read aloud a letter on behalf of town staff decrying a lack of support from the select board. That letter, Eldridge told the Independent, was what town staff had hoped to bring to the select board in June.

    The AG’s Decision

    The June 27 executive session had been the subject of much conjecture since the select board’s reorganization and the release of an almost entirely redacted version of the minutes in November. Town Counsel Murray advised in a copy of the redacted minutes that the content of the meeting fell within the personnel exemption to the Open Meeting Law.

    Murray’s redactions were appealed separately by two residents, Jude Ahern and Michael Shannon, and were ultimately overturned by the attorney general’s office earlier this summer. In her written decisions, Assistant Attorney General Carrie Benedon found that the board’s closed meeting and the censored minutes did not fall within the scope of the law.

    “The fact that a topic may be of a sensitive nature does not itself constitute permissible grounds for discussion in executive session,” Benedon wrote.

    Select board member Barbara Carboni, who is a lawyer, defended Murray’s decision, stating that she believes the meeting did in fact fall within the personnel exemption of the Open Meeting Law and that the unredacted minutes did not need to be released.

    “Based on my 20 years of experience as a municipal attorney, I believed and continue to believe that Attorney Murray provided the Board with sound legal guidance and advice,” Carboni wrote. “I was surprised by the Attorney General’s determination requiring release of the executive session minutes.”

    But, she added, she hopes the released minutes will end a much-contested chapter and lead to better trust. “I think the Board and the public are well-served at this time by disclosure and transparency,” she said.

    INTO THE MUCK

    Wellfleet Board Delays Dredging for Another Year

    A stalled $4.5-million override request risks the loss of a $2.5-million grant

    By

    WELLFLEET — The harbor mooring basin here was last dredged in 1957. The job, which has been on the town’s agenda for a decade, will now be delayed for yet another year — because the select board has decided not to ask town meeting voters for $4.48 million to pay for a permit.

    The mooring field in Wellfleet Harbor. (Photo by Nancy Bloom)

    The delay means that the town will likely lose a $2.5-million MassWorks grant awarded in 2022 when the dredging was originally set to start. The state had previously agreed to extend the deadline until this coming June 30. But it is unlikely to extend the grant for another year, said former dredging task force chair Chris Allgeier.

    “I would be surprised if they even entertained a conversation about deferring it again,” Allgeier said. The town will most likely have to reapply for the grant, he said, but “the risk now is how many more grants will we get from the state?”

    At its March 12 meeting, the select board agreed to scrap a warrant article authorizing payment of a $4.48-million fee imposed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to receive a dredging permit. The Corps maintains that dredging the 24-acre mooring field would disrupt fish habitat there.

    The select board spent the last year working with the town’s dredging task force to develop a mitigation plan as an alternative to paying the permit fee. That plan involved dedicating 28 acres in Blackfish Creek to an oyster restoration project, but the board ultimately rejected the plan because of doubts about its viability. Last November, the board decided that the town should just pay the $4.48 million.

    But scheduling issues and fear that the request for so much money would be turned down by voters have now led the select board to withdraw the request.

    The board voted to move town meeting to May 20 after Town Administrator Rich Waldo and Assistant Town Administrator Silvio Genao both resigned and the board fell behind in preparing the warrant for an April town meeting. The new date meant that a ballot question seeking approval for a Proposition 2½ override for the dredging fee would have come before voters at the April 29 town election before they could debate the issue on town meeting floor. Select board members worried that would decrease the likelihood of the override’s approval, said vice chair John Wolf.

    Select board chair Barbara Carboni said that the town will revisit the dredging fee request at a special town meeting in the fall. Between now and then, Carboni said, the town and the dredging task force “will be reviewing options.”

    Allgeier had developed the mitigation plan with dredging task force member Curt Felix. They both resigned from the task force following the select board’s Aug. 22 vote to abandon the plan. The current task force, made up of chair Joe Aberdale, Chris Merl, and Alfred Picard, has not met since October, according to agendas posted on the town website.

    Without a state grant, and with the effects of inflation, the cost of dredging the mooring field could rise to around $10 million, Allgeier said. The town currently has $2.9 million left in its funds for dredging, which means it would need about $7 million more to complete the project — in addition to the permit fee.

    And the permit fee itself is set to increase this year, Allgeier said. Last October, a spokesperson for the Div. of Fish and Game, the agency that administers the fee through a state program, told the town that the agency is looking to increase its fee structure by 30 percent in 2024. That means the cost of the permit could balloon to $5.8 million.

    “By kicking the warrant article to the fall, there is a greater likelihood that the fee will increase,” said Allgeier.

    One Option: Do Nothing

    If voters reject an override request this fall, then the town can either go back to developing a mitigation plan or continue putting the request on the ballot until it does pass, Allgeier said. “The other option,” he added, “is to do nothing.”

    But doing nothing would mean that the 8 to 12 feet of black custard currently sitting in the mooring basin would continue to spill into adjacent shellfish beds and funnel into the federal channel, which the Army Corps spent $5 million to dredge in the project’s first phase in 2020.

    The buildup of muck in the mooring basin has cost the town $80,000 a year from the loss of 270 moorings that cannot be accessed. Wolf, who runs a commercial charter from the harbor, said that the mooring field is inaccessible for two hours on either side of low tide.

    In 2015, when the town was petitioning the Army Corps to commit funds to dredge the federal channel, town officials wrote that the “economic ripple effect” has meant “tens of millions of dollars in lost opportunities for local businesspeople.” Various businesses, including Bay Sails Marine, Wellfleet Marine Corp., and Billingsgate Charters, wrote supporting letters saying that revenue has decreased by over 50 percent in recent years.

    The Shellfish Advisory Board also submitted a letter to the Corps, saying that the sediment “poses a risk to the overall health of our shellfish, specifically by the possibility of it sliding off the top of the current channel banks and smothering many of those oysters that have begun to establish themselves in Chipman’s Cove and Duck Creek.”

    Shellfisherman William “Chopper” Young, whose aquaculture grant directly abuts the mooring field, said that the silt is knee-high in parts of his grant. “When it gets to that level, everything dies,” Young said. “Nothing can live in it.”

    Is Another Way Possible?

    At its March 21 meeting, the select board authorized Wolf to engage the town’s Congressional delegation to ask the Army Corps to remove the mitigation requirement altogether.

    The Corps has argued that, because the mooring field has not been dredged in more than 50 years, it has become an essential habitat for marine and estuarine finfish and shellfish species. Invoking the Clean Water Act, the Corps said that dredging would result in adverse effects on aquatic resources of national importance, and the town would need to mitigate the effects either through a restoration project or through paying a fine.

    But Wolf believes that the Army Corps’s determination that the mooring field is a productive habitat is wrong. Various studies conducted by the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies (CCS) and the town’s engineering firm for the project, GEI Consulting, back his claim, Wolf said.

    GEI’s 2018 study concluded that “very few living organisms were found” in the basin, and that dredging would have “no permanent significant impact to essential fish habitat.”

    A 2019 CCS study titled “Benthic Habitat Mapping in Wellfleet Harbor and Vicinity” found that 31 invertebrate species made up 95 percent of all individuals in the black custard. And a CCS study the subsequent year found that black custard is “low in species diversity” — roughly 90 percent of documented species were sea worms.

    But the town’s previous attempts at persuading the Corps to lessen its demands failed. Those attempts included efforts by lobbyist Ray Bucheger of FBB Federal Relations with support from Rep. Bill Keating and senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren. The Corps did not budge, however, and in 2021 the agency formally imposed the mitigation requirement.

    Wolf said he believed the town’s failure to influence the Corps was because of a mix-up in communications. While Bucheger was lobbying the Congressional delegation, GEI had already started engaging with the Corps to develop a mitigation plan.

    “We had two negotiations going on at the same time,” said Wolf. He added that the mix-up resulted in Bucheger severing ties with the town. “Now it is up to me to make a case.”

    Allgeier said he is not optimistic about chances that the Corps will bend. “The discussion has been held many times with the Corps,” he said. “I consider it a long shot.”

    CIVICS

    Kopits Declares for a Seat on Wellfleet Select Board

    With a consulting background, he says he can analyze Wellfleet’s woes away

    By

    WELLFLEET — Steven Kopits turned in select board nomination papers on Monday, along with challenger Sheila Lyons and incumbents John Wolf and Tim Sayre. The four will vie for two three-year seats in the voting slated for Monday, April 29.

    Wellfleet Select Board candidate Steven Kopits. (Photo courtesy Steven Kopits)

    Kopits told the Independent he decided to run because he believes he can right Wellfleet’s ship. Currently vice chair of the cable advisory committee, Kopits has worked in finance, primarily as a market researcher and consultant in the energy industry.

    “I felt it is a good time to put someone in there who understands organization, finance, and accounting,” he said. “It is clear that the current structure and organization of town administration is not stable.”

    Kopits moved to Wellfeet in 2020 after splitting his time between here and Princeton, N.J. In 2014, he founded a consulting firm, Princeton Energy Advisors. He writes blog posts on topics ranging from oil to immigration and is listed as the firm’s sole staff member.

    The Princeton Energy Advisors website says it serves “hedge funds, high net worth individuals and family offices. Our clients typically hold more than $100 million in E&P equities or oil futures and derivative projects… They turn to us for different, but related, reasons.”

    Kopits previously did energy market research and worked as an investment banker with Dahlman Rose & Co., where he focused on raising capital for oil field technology companies.

    He said he has diagnosed the select board’s dysfunction as a symptom of weak financial systems. “The edifice is collapsing from the foundations up, not from the top down,” Kopits said. Kopits cited a squabble between members Ryan Curley and Michael DeVasto at the April 2023 town meeting, where the two debated how to fund a harbor master plan.

    “That is something that should have been done three levels lower,” Kopits said. “Things that should be handled at a lower level tend to bubble and become politicized. It’s not that we have to become more civil, it’s that we have to remove the causes of incivility.”

    Kopits listed other “quantitative” goals: “I would like to see the board’s workload decrease by 60 percent and the stress levels to fall by about 70 percent.” Kopits would also like to find a way not to pay the $4.5-million fee imposed by the Army Corps of Engineers to dredge the harbor. “The board should have figured out a way to handle that,” he said.

    He said he wants to find ways to avoid asking residents for money, naming the affordable housing initiatives at 95 Lawrence Road and Maurice’s Campground as “very large, very expensive projects.”

    “I am broadly supportive of helping people afford housing, but you have to be very careful,” Kopits said.

    He is sometimes cited as an expert in right-wing news sources including Breitbart, the Epoch Times, and the Washington Examiner, as well as more mainstream outlets like CNBC. “I am in the press fairly often,” Kopits said.

    He said he would place himself just right of center. “I’m not a Communist, I can tell you that,” he said. “The Communists all think I am a fascist, and the fascists think I am a Communist.  What I am is a good technical analyst.”

    In his most recent blog post, dated March 7, Kopits forecasts the number of “illegal immigrants” and “got-a-ways” — migrants who elude the border patrol, according to Kopits — that will arrive in the U.S. in 2024. According to the post, Kopits’s predictions are based on statistics from Customs and Border Protection and the House Judiciary Committee’s October 2023 report, “The Biden Border Crisis.” (“Well worth reading for the outrage alone,” Kopits wrote.)

    Kopits said his political leanings would be an asset on the select board. “To me, conservative means that you are involved with your community,” he said. “Liberal is about the individual, and conservative is about the group. If you are going for the select board, you are prioritizing the concerns of the group.”

    CIVICS

    Lyons Steps Into Wellfleet Select Board Race

    A believer in local government says she’ll work on civility and a plan

    By

    WELLFLEET — The election of two select board members this May just got a bit more competitive. Days before the deadline for taking out nomination papers, County Commissioner Sheila Lyons announced that she is throwing her hat into the ring for a three-year term on the board. Previously, incumbents John Wolf and Tim Sayre had been running unopposed.

    Sheila Lyons, president of the Wellfleet Community Forum, at the forum’s Feb. 26 public meeting. At right is Town Moderator Dan Silverman; at left is forum board member Curt Felix. (Photo by Teresa Parker)

    Former select board member Kathleen Bacon also picked up nomination papers ahead of the March 7 deadline, according to Town Clerk Jennifer Congel.

    Bacon was on the board from 2017 to 2020 and was elected again after Helen Miranda Wilson retired early from her fourth term in 2022. But Bacon gave up her seat last fall after just one year, citing the stress of serving amid constant turmoil on the board. Bacon told the Independent that she has not yet decided whether she is going to run this spring.

    Lyons, 67, has served three four-year terms on the Barnstable County Board of Regional Commissioners, two consecutively, from 2008 to 2016, and then from 2020 to 2024. Before that, she served two terms on the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates, representing Wellfleet from 2006 to 2008.

    Lyons had been debating whether to run for select board or for Sarah Peake’s seat in the state House of Representatives. Last week she told the Independent that she decided against entering the House race; on March 3 she confirmed that she was all in for a seat on Wellfleet’s executive branch of government.

    The question for her, she said, was, “Where was I going to be more useful?” After the Wellfleet Community Forum’s Feb. 26 meeting, at which an audience of over 200 discussed some of the issues plaguing the town, including a lack of participation among townsfolk, Lyons made her decision.

    “After nobody came forward at the meeting, I thought, ‘What’s the matter here?’ ” she said. Lyons is president of the forum’s board and helped facilitate the meeting. “I decided that if nobody stepped up, I would do this.”

    Lyons said she also plans to run for reelection as county commissioner.

    She believes that distrust of routine government work has led to a state of dysfunction and inertia. She believes she could change that. “I bring a belief in town government and that it should function how it is supposed to,” Lyons said. “We have a structure of how things get done, and we have agreed on that structure. If we work with it, we can get a lot of things done.”

    Recently, Lyons said, the roles of various town bodies have gotten muddled. “Everybody wants to feel like they know how to make things right, but as the select board, you aren’t there to do other people’s jobs,” she said. “You are there to set policy.”

    Lyons said she was particularly upset by the board’s vote to strike down an oyster restoration project, known as a “mitigation plan,” requested by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the town to receive a permit to dredge the harbor. Instead, the board has positioned itself to ask voters to pay a $4.5-million permit fee at the upcoming town meeting, now scheduled for May 20.

    “When we need big things like our roads to be fixed through the state or our dredge to be done by the federal government, we are petitioning to get our investments back,” Lyons said. “Why you want to block that, or feel it’s a bad thing, that’s the feeling on the board that I don’t understand.”

    In addition to serving as county commissioner, Lyons has worked for the last five years as a health-care access specialist at Outer Cape Health Services, where she said she applies her master’s in social work by helping patients navigate health insurance issues.

    “It has helped me know my community on a whole different level,” Lyons said. “I hear firsthand of the struggles of housing, of raising children here.” On the select board, Lyons said, she would want “to bring those voices forward.”

    Lyons is also an advocate of civility, she said. “I think I would bring support and civil rationality,” Lyons said. “Select board meetings are business meetings that are open to the public. It’s not a time to debate issues with the public; it is about dealing with the business at hand.”

    In spite of itself, Lyons said, “the town is still getting things done.” She said she would prioritize completing the town’s wastewater plans, developing a five-year capital plan, and renewing the town’s local comprehensive plan. That plan should be revisited every five years, Lyons noted; the last local comprehensive plan posted on the town’s website is from 2005.

    “I would like to be there to support progress,” she said.

    JUMPING SHIP

    Another Administrator Resigns, Leaving Wellfleet With None

    Silvio Genao points to lack of select board support for town staff work

    By

    WELLFLEET — At its Jan. 9 meeting, the Wellfleet Select Board voted to appoint Assistant Town Administrator Silvio Genao to the position of interim town administrator. Genao resigned on Jan. 16, just one week later, before taking on the new role at town hall.

    Genao’s resignation follows Town Administrator Rich Waldo’s resignation last month.

    According to an email sent to town staff on the morning of Jan. 17, Genao’s last day in Wellfleet will be Feb. 15; Waldo’s last day will be Feb. 9.

    “It is with a heavy heart that I inform you that I am resigning from my position,” Genao’s email to the staff read. “You have a great team in Wellfleet, who works well together and enjoys helping each other out. I hope that our paths cross again in the future.”

    The select board held a closed session on Jan. 16 to negotiate Genao’s contract as interim administrator. According to select board chair Barbara Carboni, after the executive session Genao handed her his resignation letter.

    Genao said the letter explained his reason for resigning, but he declined to provide the Independent with a copy. “The most important thing to me is my own well-being and my mental health,” Genao said. “I wouldn’t be able to be an effective assistant town administrator or interim town administrator if those things are not in place. For those reasons I don’t think I can do this job.”

    When asked if Genao’s resignation came up during the Jan. 16 executive session, Carboni said, “The resignation did not appear related to the negotiation.”

    During the board’s Jan. 9 meeting, Genao had said, “It is part of the assistant town administrator’s responsibilities that in the event of the absence of the town administrator, the assistant steps up.” Board member Tim Sayre asked Genao whether he wanted to serve as interim town administrator. “I do,” Genao replied.

    A Wakeup Call Missed

    Genao came to Wellfleet after serving as Plymouth’s director of human resources; he started his job here on Oct. 23. Genao said he knew of Wellfleet’s tangled financial history and knew that the town needed help organizing and streamlining its internal controls and processes, laid out in the state Dept. of Revenue’s financial management review last February.

    Once here, Genao said, it did not take him long to diagnose the financial problems as symptoms of a larger staffing epidemic. He said Waldo has “made a lot of strides” to fill the vacancies that have plagued the town’s administrative, financial, and health departments. But despite these recruiting efforts, “retaining is the other part.”

    Genao said he saw a systemic lack of support for staff stemming from the town’s select board and resulting in difficulties with retention. “People want to work in an organization where they know they will be allowed to their jobs, and that they are going to be supported,” Genao said. “I don’t think the leadership in the community feels that way.”

    Genao said he saw this lack of support “very soon” after starting the job. When town staff delivered a joint letter to the select board on Dec. 5 demanding better support, “I was shocked,” Genao said.

    “Your failure to support current staff does not create a productive, attractive, or even safe work environment for potential new staff members as well as for current staff,” the letter stated. It was read aloud to the board by Director of Community Services Suzanne Grout Thomas.

    “I have never seen staff members go directly to the board like that before,” Genao said. “Seeing one of them go to the mic and have internal support from other members to discuss a personnel matter in public, it was immediately a huge red flag.”

    The select board’s response to the letter was “muted,” Genao said. “To have that letter not be a wakeup call, I don’t know what else needs to be said. The silence spoke volumes to me.

    “In the short time I have been here, Wellfleet has the best staff I have ever seen,” Genao said. “I cannot say enough how much staff is willing to help, how welcomed I felt.”

    Genao likened operating municipal government to steering a ship. Town staff are the deckhands, the administration is at the tiller, and the select board is the wind that pushes the boat forward. “When you have wind pushing in opposite directions, the ship stays where it is,” Genao said.

    He said he saw “no cohesion” on a select board beset by conflict. And while Wellfleet’s ship is trapped in doldrums, staff members watch in despair. “They jump ship,” Genao said. “Eventually, what you will have is a ghost ship.”

    Righting the Ship

    The select board was slated to hold a first round of interviews for an interim town administrator on Wednesday, Jan. 24, after the deadline for this edition of the Independent. According to the meeting’s agenda, the candidates include former Town Administrator Harry Terkanian and Liz Hartsgrove, the current assistant town administrator in Bourne.

    The board will be holding another interview on Monday, Jan. 29, Carboni told the Independent.

    Carboni said that the board’s first order of business is to fill the interim town administrator job as soon as it can, which is “particularly important as we are heading into budget and warrant season.”

    Carboni said the board will also appoint a search committee for the job of permanent town administrator. The town has also started the procurement process for hiring a professional recruiter to fill the permanent administrator roles.

    Filling the assistant town administrator position is “secondary to the urgency of finding someone who is qualified to fill the interim town administrator role,” Carboni said, though the searches will proceed simultaneously.

    About Genao’s resignation, Town Administrator Rich Waldo said, “I was hoping for continuity.” But, he added, “I understand his decision and support his decision.”

    “In the short time he was with us, Silvio impressed me with his knowledge, people skills, and dedication to public service,” Carboni said in a written comment to the Independent. “I wish him well in his next endeavor.”

    CIVICS

    Ryan Curley Is Ousted as Chair of Wellfleet Select Board

    After unexplained turmoil, Carboni is elected to the lead role

    By

    WELLFLEET — The select board replaced Ryan Curley with Barbara Carboni in the chair’s seat at its July 18 meeting, apparently bringing to a conclusion a conflict between Curley and the rest of the board that remains unexplained.

    The move to unseat Curley came into public view during the board’s July 11 meeting, when member Kathleen Bacon read a statement during the public comment period asserting that Curley had tried to stop multiple attempts to reorganize the board.

    “Two members of the select board have requested an agenda item to reorganize the select board,” Bacon said. “This request has been ignored and dismissed by chair Curley. It has put select board members in an awkward and uncomfortable position. We feel a reorganization of the board as expeditiously as possible is in the best interest of the town.”

    The origin of the turmoil, however, is unclear. It was the subject of an executive session held on June 27, according to several board members. Executive sessions are exceptions to the state’s open meeting law and are closed to the public and the press. According to the agenda, the June 27 session was held “to hear complaints against a public official or employee.”

    Two days later, on June 29, board member Michael DeVasto submitted a formal request that reorganization of the board be added to the July 11 meeting agenda, DeVasto told the Independent. He said that a week later Bacon made the same request.

    Because they are not authorized to discuss what happened at an executive session, board members declined to elaborate on their reasons for wanting a new chair. “Our hands are tied,” said John Wolf, who was elected vice chair on July 18.

    At the July 18 meeting, residents urged the board to explain the sudden reorganization. “Something did happen,” Bacon said, “and it happened in an executive session, and until those minutes can be released, we are not able to discuss it. But know that it was serious enough to call for a reorganization.”

    The conflict was about “differences of opinions” regarding Town Administrator Rich Waldo, Curley told the Independent.

    “There are areas where his performance needs to improve,” Curley wrote in an email, “and the board is uninterested in learning about some of the issues that have arisen around his handling of town finances and staffing.

    “There was also multiple breaches of state ethical standards in regards to the confidentiality of executive sessions,” Curley continued, “as well as conflict of interest disclosures or lack thereof.” He did not elaborate.

    Waldo declined to comment, citing the confidential nature of the subject.

    According to DeVasto, after he and Bacon both submitted requests to reorganize the board at its July 11 meeting, Curley sent the other board members a letter on July 6 stating that he would step down as chair after a special town meeting scheduled for September.

    That letter, which was unsigned and undated, was sent to the Independent by Curley. “There are a lot of moving parts in the lead-up to [the special town meeting],” Curley wrote. “There are also other confidential personnel matters that I will not disclose until necessary within a similar time frame. There are significant differences between myself and TA Waldo. I will avoid putting them in writing at this time.”

    On July 11, reorganization of the board was not on its agenda. During that meeting, a motion made by DeVasto to place reorganization on the board’s July 13 meeting agenda quickly devolved into a screaming match between DeVasto and Curley.

    Curley refused to entertain DeVasto’s motion, saying it was “out of order” and that the town charter does not allow for reorganization of the board more than once a year. The charter states: “All boards, commissions, and committees of the Town shall organize annually.”

    DeVasto called Curley’s argument “bullshit,” and Curley responded, “I’m filing immediately with state ethics. You and Kathleen both violated state ethics. You are violating my rights.”

    After remaining silent for some minutes, Wolf finally spoke up. “Our rights at this point are secondary to the interests of the town in keeping our town administrator,” he said. “I suggest we put our individual concerns about these rights aside and schedule a reorganization for the next select board meeting.”

    The board voted 4-1 to place reorganization on the July 13 agenda, with Curley dissenting. The members agreed they would wait to hear from Town Counsel Carolyn Murray on the legality of DeVasto’s motion.

    Murray’s opinion, received the next day, confirmed that the board could place reorganization on its July 13 agenda. “While the chair may be responsible under the [open meeting law] for preparing the list of topics to be discussed at a meeting, this is not to suggest that the chair alone controls the topics to be discussed,” Murray wrote. “Indeed, the chair is one of five equal members of the select board, and members may request or even vote to discuss a topic at a future meeting, and in my experience such requests are routinely honored.”

    Murray also confirmed that the charter does not preclude multiple reorganizations from happening in a single year, Wolf told the Independent.

    But reorganization was not on the agenda on July 13 either. During the public comments portion of the July 13 meeting, DeVasto accused Curley of taking the item off the agenda, which Curley denied. Waldo said that the item did not make it onto the agenda in the first place. With Bacon absent from that meeting, the board agreed to move the reorganization vote to July 18.

    Despite Curley’s seeming reluctance to give up the chair, he voted with the rest of the board to elect Carboni chair on July 18.

    “I am looking forward to stepping back to a lesser role,” Curley told the Independent. At the July 18 meeting, Curley said, “I should have stepped back from being the chair at the annual reorganization a couple of months ago.”

    Curley had been chair of the board for two years. He was reelected chair on May 2 by a 4-1 vote, with DeVasto opposed. He was reelected to serve another three-year term on the board at May’s annual town election.

    Wolf later said, “When I was elected to serve on the board, I nominated Ryan for chair, and during the last reorganization, I nominated him again. None of this is easy for me, but I believe it is necessary.

    “I am going to urge that once this situation is resolved we waste as little time as possible in approving the minutes of the executive session for release,” Wolf added. “It’s important that the public understands what led to this.”

    WELLFLEET TOWN ELECTION

    Curley Is Reelected to Select Board

    By

    WELLFLEET — Select board incumbent Ryan Curley defeated challenger Jeanne Maclaughlan at the May 1 town election. And on May 2 the board asked Curley to serve another year as its chair.

    “I’m honored,” Curley said, “and I look forward to serving the town for three more years.”

    According to unofficial results, 891 voters submitted ballots in this year’s election. Curley received 532 votes; Maclaughlan got 298.

    Curley said that he will continue working to address what he sees as the town’s two main challenges: housing and wastewater. And although he is disappointed with the defeat of a housing specialist position on this year’s ballot, the quest to create that role isn’t over, he said.

    “We are going to reassess and try to figure out how to do it differently,” Curley said. “Housing is extremely complicated. We need someone who is capable of advancing our efforts while supporting the programs we already have in place.”

    He noted that a wastewater superintendent position that voters approved this year at both town meeting and the ballot had failed in past years.

    Overall, Curley said, he is happy with the results of town meeting. “The voters put the town in a much better place in a lot of different areas, including housing,” he said.

    He pointed to the approval of an $850,000 debt exclusion that will fund the extension of a water main from Eastham to Maurice’s Campground, which the town purchased last fall to develop into an affordable housing site. “It would have cost the town a lot more money in the future if it had been delayed,” Curley said.

    Maclaughlan did not respond to a request for comment.

    In the only other contested race, Charles “Skip” Annett bested Richard Davis for a two-year term on the cemetery commission. Annett received 328 votes; Davis received 265.

    Dan Silverman will serve another one-year term as moderator. Laura Baghetti and Martha Gordon will stay on the elementary school committee for another three years. Andrew Freeman and Robin Robinson will serve again in three-year terms as library trustees. Nancy Vail will serve another three-year term on the cemetery commission, and Chris Easley will stay on the Nauset Regional School Committee for another three years.

    TOWN ELECTION

    Two Write-In Candidates Emerge in Wellfleet; Bacon Withdraws

    Wilson resigns from select board; nomination papers for special election available April 13

    By

    Editor’s note: This article has been updated since its original publication in print on April 7 with new information about the June 21 special election ballot supplied by Wellfleet Town Clerk Jennifer Congel.

    WELLFLEET — Two new candidates for select board have emerged in the last week and are conducting write-in campaigns for the May 2 annual town election. Meanwhile, a third write-in candidate, former select board member Kathleen Bacon, who also announced her entry into the race last week, said on Tuesday that she had changed her mind and withdrawn.

    Three spots on the five-member board must be filled this spring. Incumbent Michael DeVasto is the only candidate who filed nomination papers and will appear on the May 2 ballot, running for another three-year term. The other incumbent, Janet Reinhart, decided at the last minute not to seek re-election.

    Meanwhile, Helen Miranda Wilson, the longest serving member of the current board, submitted her resignation on March 29. The remaining two years of her term will be filled by the winner of a special election on June 21. Town Clerk Jennifer Congel reported that nomination papers for candidates seeking to replace Wilson will be available at her office starting Wednesday, April 13. The last day to take out papers is Friday, April 29. Completed nominations must be submitted by Tuesday, May 3 at 5 p.m.

    The May 2 regular town election ballot will instruct citizens to vote for two people for select board for three years, with DeVasto’s name appearing above two blank spaces for write-in candidates. Both of the announced write-in candidates, Barbara Carboni and Timothy Sayre, said this week they would be willing to serve for either two or three years. Thus, failure to win election with a write-in vote on May 2 would still leave a narrow window for the candidate to file papers for the special election in June.

    “I’ll need to get lawn signs now,” DeVasto told the Independent.

    Bacon attributed her decision to withdraw from the campaign she had only recently announced to frustration with town officials, especially Town Clerk Jennifer Congel, from whom Bacon said she received “incorrect information regarding the election and the ballot.” She also criticized DeVasto, Reinhart, and Wilson for waiting so long to announce their decisions on running for re-election.

    “The nomination papers come out in the clerk’s office in the middle of January,” said Bacon. “You have an obligation to let the public know that you’re either running or not running. Michael didn’t let people know until the middle of March — Janet, the last day of March. And Helen waited until the last possible day to say she was resigning.”

    Bacon said she had decided to run a write-in campaign at the urging of friends in town offices and departments. But “at the end of the day,” she said, “it’s too much stress. I want to go to a studio and start making paintings again.”

    There is no deadline for write-in candidates, so more candidates could theoretically enter the race right up until election day, “but it’s generally helpful to let the town clerk know,” said Congel.

    Wilson’s Decision

    Wilson first announced her intention to resign from the select board at its March 8 meeting because of health concerns and “other obligations,” although she hesitated to make her decision official until the write-in candidates had announced their campaigns.

    “Nobody had come forward and it was last minute,” she told the Independent. “We’re getting a new town administrator, treasurer, and accountant. I thought, I can’t just walk off now. I was happy because I have an appetite for being on the select board. I have no appetite for what I’m going to be having to do in the next year or so.”

    Vacancies on the select board caused by resignation must be filled at a special election, Congel said.

    This is the second year in a row that Wellfleet has faced a town election with more open seats on the select board than candidates on the ballot.

    DeVasto, the Oysterman

    Incumbent DeVasto, 40, was elected to the select board in 2019, replacing long-time member Jerry Houk. He hoped that his candidacy would encourage other younger residents to get involved in town affairs.

    “I am still hopeful,” he said. “While the pandemic has made it difficult for young working people to volunteer, it’s fulfilling to be part of solving problems for the community.”

    With new members coming on the select board, he said, “it will be important to have some continuity.”

    DeVasto graduated from Nauset Regional High School in 2000 and has a bachelor’s degree from the Mass. College of Art and Design. He owns the Field Point Oyster Farm, which he runs with his partner of 18 years, Katie Murphy. They have a four-year-old daughter, Violet.

    “I’m running to address the housing crisis head on, so that we can retain a vibrant year-round community,” he said. “If we want to keep our town a village, with flourishing businesses and families, we are going to have to tackle the housing crisis. We are at serious risk of losing the character of our town if people can’t find stable housing.

    “We really need to get to a point where the budget doesn’t depend on one-time revenue streams, or using free cash for general operating costs,” he added. “Our accounting problem is an administrative issue. We’re the policy-setting board, barred from the dealings of town administration unless we are informed that there’s a problem by the town administrator. While we can’t go in there and make sure people are performing in their jobs, as a board, we need to set our budget priorities and talk about how we fund things.”

    Carboni, the Lawyer

    Write-in candidate Barbara Carboni, 58, moved to Wellfleet full-time just over a year ago, when she took the job of Truro Town Planner and Land Use Counsel. She has a law degree from Boston University and a master’s degree in urban and environmental policy from Tufts.

    In 2018 she joined KP Law, the same year she bought her house in Wellfleet. One of her first responsibilities was advising the town of Truro on the Cloverleaf affordable housing development.

    She serves on Wellfleet’s Rights of Public Access Committee.

    Her priorities on the select board, she said, are “housing. Put that down three times. Housing is a priority not only for its own sake, but it also has detrimental effects on local businesses when they can’t hire people because there’s nowhere to live. Also, looking ahead strategically with respect to rising sea levels and other changes we anticipate in the environment.

    “While I haven’t been here very long,” Carboni continued, “I work on Outer Cape issues every day in Truro: housing, access to health care, water quality. I have an understanding of the procedural guidelines and rules select boards and other town boards have to operate under, like public records law and open meeting law. I’m really interested in those nuts and bolts.”

    Sayre, the Jam Man

    “You have accountability to the taxpayers,” said write-in candidate Timothy Sayre. “We need to justify when and why money is moved, where we’re taking it and if we’re overspending.”

    Sayre, 66, was born in Boston and went to school in Florida, but “the Cape is where I grew up,” he said. Each summer, he stayed with his grandparents, Wellfleet natives Esther and Leroy Wiles. He moved here full-time two years ago, joining his wife, Terri, in running his grandmother’s business, Briar Lane Jams and Jellies.

    Sayre studied computer science at the University of Miami, and his career was spent working mostly for a large company in Florida, he said. He served on various boards in Palm Beach County, including the school board’s oversight committee.

    “We need to fix the finances,” he said. “My first goal is to ask for all the budgets from the past couple years. I not only want to see the budget, but I want to see what they spent that money on. I want to make sure it’s being spent where it’s supposed to be, and that people weren’t overspending their budgets or just writing checks.

    “I know there’s nearly $800,000 they can’t account for. While they have people in the accounting department doing an analysis, I wouldn’t call it forensic. I’m not confident they know where that variance is and if they will ever find it. Moving forward, the board needs to better oversee every budget brought before them and become deeply involved in asking questions.”

     

    WELLFLEET TOWN MEETING

    Select Board Sponsors Bylaws to Address Housing Needs

    Two articles would create affordable lots and year-round cottages

    By

    WELLFLEET — The select board has proposed two articles for the June 11 annual town meeting aimed at addressing the town’s lack of both affordable and year-round housing.

    One would allow deed-restricted affordable houses to be constructed on lots that are currently classified as unbuildable. The other would allow cottage colonies to be occupied year-round instead of just seasonally.

    Affordable Lots

    The proposed bylaw change for currently unbuildable lots would add two categories. The first, labeled “Affordable Lot,” would allow a single-family home to be built by right — that is, without a special permit — on a lot with at least 10,000 square feet of upland. The second category, “Affordable Undersized Lot,” would allow a single-family dwelling to be built on a lot with under 10,000 square feet of upland but only by a special permit from the zoning board of appeals.

    Houses in both categories would carry deed restrictions and be allowed in all districts except the National Seashore Park District. The parcels would also have to satisfy all board of health requirements and conservation commission regulations.

    Before the board’s vote to sponsor this article, member Helen Miranda Wilson said she wanted it to be reviewed by town counsel before puting it on the warrant. Chair Ryan Curley, who wrote the proposal, said town counsel reviews only articles the board wants to include on the warrant.

    Member Janet Reinhart said the town’s various boards should get to offer their opinions first. “I love what you’re doing, but this is a huge subject,” Reinhart said.

    Curley responded that he had presented the article to the town’s housing organizations and “they supported it in concept.” However, he continued, “I presented it to the planning board, and they basically refused to take it up.”

    After member Michael DeVasto said he was concerned about the proposed setbacks of 10 feet from lot lines, the distance was increased to 15 feet. If houses are built within 25 feet of an adjacent dwelling, a six-foot stockade fence would be required.

    The select board voted to sponsor the proposal, with Reinhart casting the sole vote in opposition.

    In the summary of the bylaw, Curley wrote that there are 18 lots that have a high probability of being developed in this way and 26 others where the bylaw may be applicable.

    Year-Round Cottages

    “About 10 percent of our housing stock is now restricted to seasonal use,” said Curley before the board’s vote to sponsor the proposed change in the cottage colony bylaw to make them year-round. “We need to create as many opportunities as we can to bring housing stock back into the year-round housing market,” he said.

    Converting cottage colonies from seasonal to year-round use has been under discussion for several years. In 2015, the planning board asked the Cape Cod Commission to study a possible bylaw change that would allow cottages to be occupied year-round provided they were owned by or rented to qualified low- to moderate-income tenants. The study noted that several cottage colonies had been converted from rentals to individually owned condos. The commission found 346 seasonal-restricted units in town.

    Cottages in the National Seashore Park District are excluded from the proposed change.

    The current proposal for year-round occupancy doesn’t include a requirement for affordability. It simply removes a sentence in the bylaw limiting occupancy.

    Wilson called the proposed change “a long time coming.”

    Curley said it would result in “housing that’s affordable by design rather than restriction,” considering the size of the existing units, which can be no smaller than 550 square feet and no larger than 768 square feet, according to the bylaw.

    Cottage colonies are allowed only by special permit.

    In the bylaw summary, Curley wrote, “Wellfleet badly needs a more balanced blend of housing options.” The housing crisis, he wrote, “is already affecting the town’s quality of life and economic sustainability.”

    The planning board must hold public hearings on any proposed bylaw changes that are set to come before town meeting. Chair Gerald Parent said a date has not yet been set for hearings on these select board proposals.

    WELLFLEET ELECTION

    John Wolf Wins Select Board Seat as Write-In and Will Replace Carlson

    All articles are approved and budget will go up 13 percent

    By

    WELLFLEET — The town has a new select board member, John Wolf, who says he wanted to get on the board to address the severe accounting crisis at town hall.

    Wolf defeated incumbent Justina Carlson, who, like Wolf, was running as a write-in candidate, by a margin of 374 to 332. Incumbent Helen Miranda Wilson, the only candidate printed on the ballot, was re-elected with 609 votes.

    Thirty percent — that is, 922 — of the town’s 3,018 registered voters took part in the June 30 election. Along with voting in Wolf, they approved all 10 debt exclusions and one budget override, that is, purchases that will raise the tax levy beyond the 2.5-percent legal limit. The election results will cause the town budget to go up by 13 percent, adding $534 a year to the tax bill on a home valued at $551,000, the current median assessment.

    Wolf plans to make hiring the right person as the new town administrator his top priority. He also wants all meetings to be recorded and available to the public. He is urging caution on the future uses of the 254 acres of shellfish flats purchased by the town in 2019.

    But first, he said, he needs to win over the 332 people who voted for Carlson, his opponent.

    John Wolf.

    “I appreciate the trust that those who voted for me have in me,” Wolf said. “I have to earn the trust of those who didn’t.”

    One of his big fans turns out to be Carlson herself.

    “John Wolf is a real gentleman,” she said.

    The three candidates for two select board spots, Carlson, Wolf, and Wilson, spent election day waving at voters. When it was all over, Wolf offered to take down Carlson’s campaign signs along with his own.

    “At 11:30 at night he dropped my signs off at my house, after a very long day,” she said.

    Carlson said Wolf campaigned hard, and seems to want the job. She admitted that she is tired, and happy to have the extra time to devote to her personal life.

    “I gave 10 years to the town [seven as a water commissioner] and worked hard and I’m happy to move on,” she said. “It’s a lot of work and a lot of years.”

    Select board service is not for the meek. The town administrator and town accountant both resigned earlier this year amid a financial crisis resulting from years of high turnover and inadequate staffing and supervision of the accounting department. The select board was criticized for not seeing the crisis sooner.

    “We don’t have degrees in finance,” Carlson told critics. “The select board worked incredibly hard. These issues were not the select board’s responsibility by charter. And the finance committee was nowhere to be found.”

    Finance committee member Stephen Polowczyk laid the crisis at the select board’s feet. “Someone was asleep,” he said on June 24.

    But if voters were displeased with the accounting chaos that will take months to untangle, according to Interim Town Administrator Charlie Sumner, they didn’t show it at the election.

    By 663 to 243, voters agreed to hire two firefighters for $168,000, which will permanently raise the tax rate. The rest of the purchases listed below will raise the tax rate for the life of the corresponding loans. By 693 to 217, voters approved purchase of portable radios for the fire dept. for $85,000; by 623 to 286, to buy an emergency response boat for the marine department for $290,000; by 544 to 353, to purchase a replacement ¾-ton pickup truck and plow for $60,000; and by 544 to 347, to buy a replacement roll-off truck for the DPW for $240,000.

    Voters supported spending $50,000 for engineering to replace a revetment at Mayo Creek by 577 to 304. They voted to spend $35,000 to replace the baseball backstop at Baker Field by 559 to 334. They approved $138,000 for design work to improve the Main Street and Route 6 intersection by 563 to 331. They raised $250,000 to compensate homeowners needing new septic systems to install new innovative or alternative systems by 620 to 267. They approved $50,000 to engineer a permeable reactive barrier at East Commercial Street to improve quality at Duck Creek by 507 to 353.

    By a 702 to 194 vote, they approved spending $1.9 million to provide a wastewater treatment system for a future affordable housing project at 95 Lawrence Road.

    WELLFLEET SELECTS

    Helen Miranda Wilson Is Not Worried

    Of the town’s accounting problems, she says, ‘We have people addressing it’

    By

    WELLFLEET — Helen Miranda Wilson, who has been a select board member for nine years, says the town’s current financial crisis and leadership vacuum does not worry her too much.

    “I don’t get worried because I’ve been doing it for 22 years and I’ve seen things get better when they haven’t been good,” she says. “It’s not a drama.”

    In April, Wellfleet’s new town administrator and new town accountant both resigned. The town’s free cash has not been certified by the state, which means there’s $1 million it cannot use. There are so many deficiencies in the town’s books that Interim Administrator Charlie Sumner and two part-time retired accountants are uncovering new problems every day.

    Wilson is unconcerned.

    “It never resolves,” she says. “It continues. Every year there are budget problems, and this year, there is dealing with the structure, which needs to be revamped. But it’s always ongoing.”

    Wilson, 73, grew up in Wellfleet the child of literary lion Edmund Wilson. She attended Barnard College for one year, then the New York Studio School for two. A visual artist her whole life, she has volunteered on town committees for years, including the shellfish advisory board. In 2019, she donated $1 million anonymously to the town to buy 254 acres of shellfish flats off Indian Neck as part of a $2 million purchase, completed with $1 million of taxpayers’ money.

    Her name was made public in June 2019, following a public records request filed by an editor of the Provincetown Banner. Town counsel instructed the town to release her name to comply with the state’s conflict of interest law. But the disclosure came only after months of Wilson’s advocacy and voting on the shellfish flats purchase.

    Wilson defends her actions to this day, stating she had no financial interest in shellfishing and was donating money to help preserve the industry by preventing the flats from being sold for high profits. Her reason for being anonymous was not wanting to discuss the source of the money, which she insists was an inheritance from the death by suicide of her partner, Tim Woodman.

    Furthermore, she says, former Town Administrator Dan Hoort told her it was okay to remain anonymous while advocating that taxpayers pay to purchase the flats.

    Given that Hoort gave her advice contrary to town counsel’s, and that much of the crisis in the accounting department flourished when Hoort was town administrator and she was on the select board, would she do anything differently when it comes to hiring and supervising the next town administrator?

    There is nothing to do, she says, but hope for good applicants. She would not change the way the job is advertised or described.

    “We are lucky to get Charlie, but all the others had something good about them,” she says.

    Wilson claims competence in municipal finances, yet she did not know what the town auditor was referring to three weeks ago when he tried to explain the $765,000 unaccounted for in the town’s books. He said the “agency fund was upside down to the tune of $740,000” and that “it made sense that that entry for $765,000 would go into that agency fund.”

    Wilson says she doesn’t know which agency fund the auditor was referring to. But she told the Wellfleet Democratic Town Committee in a June 10 conference call that the visit with the auditor “was very reassuring to me. It wasn’t their fault that this happened. I see the situation having been very much exacerbated by the pandemic.”

    WELLFLEET SELECTS

    The Continuity Candidate Who’s Not on the Ballot

    Incumbent Carlson asks voters to keep current board intact

    By

    WELLFLEET — Ask her why she deserves another term on the Wellfleet Select Board and Justina Carlson preaches continuity.

    “I don’t think it’s time to switch horses in midstream,” she says.

    Carlson acknowledges the challenges facing the town, most notably the budget and turnover at town administrator. But she says disrupting the current team now would only introduce more instability. The town needs someone, she says, “who knows the ropes.”

    Initially, Carlson decided not to run again. She changed her mind after the filing deadline. So, she is a write-in candidate for her own seat in the June 30 election.

    Why did she change her mind about running? Carlson says senior town staff members and other members of the select board encouraged her. She won’t name them.

    Justina Carlson.

    The one-term incumbent says she’s proud of what the current board has achieved in the past year. She’s particularly proud of the 95 Lawrence Road affordable housing plan now out for bids from developers. She uses the phrase “a good team” more than once when describing the select board’s work. It’s working well, she argues, so why switch it up?

    The town auditor’s most recent report revealed an array of problems including a “material weakness” in Wellfleet’s cash management, the most serious finding possible in an audit. The town’s disastrously bungled accounting has been building for at least two years, according to Interim Town Administrator Charlie Sumner, but the auditor’s report appears to have caught the select board unawares.

    Carlson, though, doesn’t see the situation as evidence that the select board has been negligent.

    She repeatedly blames the problem on the retirement of three long-tenured town hall employees some years ago, including the town treasurer and tax collector. She also brings up the well-documented turnover at the town administrator position.

    Carlson believes she and the other members of the current board deserve credit for how they’ve responded to Wellfleet’s money issues. She says the board moved “aggressively” to fix the problems identified in the auditor’s report. She points to the select board’s hiring of Sumner, who brings 30 years of experience to the position.

    Nonetheless, Carlson recognizes the turnover problem needs fixing. Sumner is retired and will not be in the job long-term. Soon, Wellfleet will have its fifth town administrator in six years. She says there’s “clearly” a need to change the hiring process.

    When asked what her greatest priority will be if elected to a second term, Carlson lists three: affordable housing, clean water, and “cleaning up the mess in town hall.” She plans to continue her work on water protection and is the liaison to the town’s wastewater committee. As for affordable housing, Carlson mentions a plan for an affordable housing initiative “in its infancy,” coming out of an existing relationship with Cape Cod Cooperative Bank.

    As Carlson outlines her ideas, she reflexively considers their cost in resources. Even her small ideas, like starting an Instagram page to improve town communication, begin with thoughts about the draw on “staff time.” With her business background, she’s familiar with how organizations function, she says. She often refers to her Ivy League pedigree (she went to Harvard) and to having started a successful web-development company in California and then sold it.

    She’s careful with her words, referring to a small stack of printed notes to keep herself on message. Despite being the incumbent, she’s not taking any chances.

    “I don’t think anything’s solved by going after the select board with pitchforks,” she remarks. “I think we should keep the team intact.”

    WELLFLEET SELECTS

    John Wolf Says He Will Do His Homework

    It’s time, he says, for new blood on the select board

    By

    WELLFLEET — John Wolf pulls up to the Flying Fish in a massive Mercedes work van, fitted with disproportionately small magnetic campaign signs and a license plate that reads TRBONE (a tribute to his decades-long career as a jazz trombonist).

    John Wolf.

    Wolf, who is “Wolfie” to his friends, has just spent a couple of hours meeting with the Herring River Restoration Committee. “That’s an issue I was not really up on,” he says. “I had a very vague idea of what that was about. I really learned a lot.”

    Wolf sees his lack of experience in town affairs as one of his greatest strengths, because he loves to learn new things. He positions himself as the most pragmatic candidate in the race. “I’m not going to guess,” he says. “I’m going to actually do my homework.”

    A native of Washington, D.C. who lived in St. Louis for 23 years, Wolf fell in love with the Cape during family trips as a child. In 2010, he moved to Wellfleet full-time, and today he works as an HVAC and restaurant mechanic, serves on the Marina Advisory Committee, is a commercial operator and licensed captain in the harbor, and is an active participant at town meetings.

    Wolf is also a moderator of the occasionally controversial Wellfleet Community Space Facebook group. He does not think remaining a moderator while running for office is a conflict of interest, but says he would step down if elected.

    When someone (who Wolf would not name) approached him about running for the select board, Wolf said, “You must think I have a vacancy of the cranium.” But he changed his mind and entered the race as a write-in candidate, in part because nobody new was running. “That’s not healthy,” he says.

    Wellfleet’s financial troubles were another factor in Wolf’s decision to run. “The financial problems don’t have one single cause, but the nexus of it lies with the select board,” he says. Though the town administrator is directly responsible for town finances, the administrator answers to the select board, and Wolf thinks that board has not done a good job asking questions or requiring accountability.

    Wolf proposes to put the town’s auditing contract out for bid, rather than staying with the same firm, which Wellfleet has done for 25 years.

    Wolf describes affordable housing as a “critical need on all sorts of levels” and says, without providing specifics, “We’ve got to find a way to streamline this. It shouldn’t be taking so long.” He says he wants to increase transparency in town government by requiring that all board and committee meetings are videotaped, and he proposes improving the “flawed” town administrator hiring process by selecting a search committee publicly and strictly adhering to their recommendations.

    Wolf knows that his views on national politics are a subject of gossip. He is a self-described “small-L libertarian,” and brings up unprompted a recent social media post that said, “Just what we need, a gun-toting Trump supporter on the select board.” Wolf flatly rejects the characterization and calls the focus on national party affiliations a distraction. “If they want to not vote for me because they think I voted for Joe Biden or they think I voted for Donald Trump, then that’s a vote that I don’t need.”

    Though Wolf won’t be telling anyone who he voted for in 2020 anytime soon, he will be on the campaign trail in the coming days “becoming as well informed as possible” while repeatedly explaining the proper way to fill out a write-in ballot.

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