Former Brewster town administrator offered temporary Orleans job
ORLEANS - When Charles Sumner retired in 2015 after serving as Brewster’s town administrator since October of 1986 he was ready to climb mountains, and enjoy a life of leisure. But as of Wednesday night he is on the verge of taking his third job as a temporary town administrator of a Cape Cod town since retirement.
The Orleans Select Board voted 5-0 to offer Sumner the job of interim town administrator and enter into negotiations for a contract at its Wednesday meeting.
Current administrator John Kelly will retire in March but his last Select Board meeting will be in December, because of his accrual of time off. Kelly was set to stop work Jan. 1, but he may now do one week in January. Kelly has served as the Orleans town administrator since 1996.
Since retirement Sumner has served as the Provincetown interim town manager, from August 2020 to April 2021, and the Wellfleet interim town administrator from May 2021 to June 2022. He is still working on some projects in Wellfleet and will continue to do so. His contract with Orleans would be for 90 days from roughly Jan. 1 to April 1. The contract may be renewed if Orleans is still searching for a replacement for Kelly.
Kelly and Sumner worked side by side in adjoining towns for 20 years and handled linked issues on the Tri-Town septage plant, which was jointly owned by Orleans, Brewster and Eastham, as well as Nauset Public Schools, the Pleasant Bay Alliance and more.
Sumner filled administrator gaps in other Cape towns
Sumner has also worked for Weston and Sampson providing advice in the Harwich wastewater project, and he served as executive director for Pleasant Bay Community Boating. That activity is one reason Sumner and his wife decided they need more family time so he will be away in California for much of his first two months in Orleans. Sumner said he will spend one week on Cape in both January and February. He will be in Orleans for all of March. The other two candidates for the position, Charles Blanchard, the former town manager of Palmer and Williamstown, and Carter Terenzini, a former town administrator in towns in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, live off-Cape and also would only be available part-time in person.
“Provincetown feels like the Orleans situation,” Sumner said at Wednesday's meeting. “It was well run with a great staff. I really was just a caretaker. The things I worked with were collective bargaining and budgeting. Provincetown had gone through a number of town managers in a short time and that created uncertainty.”
Wellfleet presented more problems as financial records were garbled.
“I served 13 months,” Sumner said. “They were transitioning to a new software platform and they never had their accounts balanced. There was a chance the town would be put into receivership so I brought in a team I’d worked with before and the three of us reconstituted the records from July of 2014 to June 2022. That was really demanding.”
Sumner expects Orleans will be smoother sailing.
Sumner said he plans to meet with all department heads, the chair of the Finance Committee, and other staff to see what the issues are.
The Select Board also interviewed two consulting firms as they seek to hire one to assist in screening and identifying candidates for a permanent town administrator. Groux-White Consulting and Rand Frank Consulting are the firms. No decision was made on Wednesday.
Both firms noted there are fewer candidates applying for such positions as in the past but quality candidates are still available. Kelly’s annual salary was $180,500, not including a cost of living adjustment for this year.
Gain access to premium Cape Cod Times content by subscribing.
This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Orleans hires interim town administrator as search begins to fill post
