Above: The Town Clerk is proposing a big change for the Town as he prepares for his own big change. (image cropped from meeting video)
When Town Clerk Jim Hegarty spoke to the Select Board and Advisory Committee on Tuesday, he quipped that he was there to talk himself out of a job.
Hegarty is running unopposed for his seat again this spring. But if voters act as he recommends, they’ll use the same May 12th ballot to vote him out of office.
The Town Clerk said that if all goes well, his term would end three days after the election. At that point, he may serve in the role under contract, “as a bridge” until the Select Board finds a longer term replacement.
It’s not the first time this issue will have come before voters. In 2014, a Warrant Article asked Town Meeting to professionalize the job by converting it into an appointed position. That was also proposed to deal with a retiring Town Clerk. But Paul Berry, who had been in the seat for over 40 years, opposed the change and urged Town Meeting to vote no.
Berry told the hall that the Town Clerk position should report directly to the voters it serves. The hall overwhelmingly agreed.1
This week, Hegarty told the Select Board and Advisory Committee that he originally felt the same way. But over time, that changed.
Hegarty, who had retired from the FBI, successfully ran in 2015 to complete the final two years of Berry’s term. He told the board that during the close to 11 years he’s been in the job, it’s complexity had increased dramatically:
There are over 400 sections of the Massachusetts general laws that refer to actions of the courts. So, it’s a pretty steep learning curve to do this properly. And as much as I enjoyed the independence of being elected, I think that that is the best move going forward
Under the current law, only Southborough residents, who are registered voters, can run for the seat. One of the benefits would be opening the position up to be filled by someone with experience.
Hegarty told the Select Board that there have been times when he has no staff or no experienced staff working under him. He spoke about an unexpected hospital stay for five days this year. It was the second incident of an unplanned absence. He recalled his bad fall (resulting in a concussion) four days prior to the 2020 election, leaving a new employee to cover.
(Of course, the same could happen with an appointed clerk. My reading between the lines for Hegarty’s rationale was — providing a potential career path for non-residents would allow the department to better attract and retain staff, and allow for transition planning.)
Select Board member Tim Fling asked about the current process if the Clerk becomes incapacitated. Hegarty said there are some retired Town Clerks willing to step in to work part time for different towns. But he cautioned:
there’s ways to make it work, but there’s just a lot of balls in the air down there. It’s not rocket science, but if you screw up somebody’s voting stuff — the confidence of people is in the voting stuff is enormously important. It just is. And I think we do a pretty good job of doing it the right way that people should have confidence that we care about it.
Upon questioning, he acknowledged that about 2/3 of Town Clerks in the state are elected, as are most in towns in our immediate vicinity. But he followed, “the trend is to be appointed”. Some have moved from elected to appointed. And he isn’t aware of any changes in the reverse.
For the Town to shift to an appointed seat, voters would first need to approve the measure at the upcoming Annual Town Meeting on April 11th. Then it would be ratified on the same Town Election ballot that Hegarty is running on. A yes vote on the question would negate the results of the election for the seat.
Prior to the Select Board voting on their positions, Chair Andrew Dennington laid out the most likely argument that potential opponents to the change would make:
it’s a position that needs to be very neutral, and we want to separate it out from other elected positions.
But he countered:
for a position this important, why would you restrict the talent pool of the people that could be in that position. . . it’s a very small number of people who are interested in running for town office.
Select Board member Kathy Cook worried that he was wrong about people wanting to run. Since it is a salaried position:
there could be a group of people that might want to step up and might not necessarily be qualified to step up.
The board and Town Administrator Mark Purple spoke about the significant changes and professionalization that Hegarty had brought to the office. It’s worth noting that Hegarty shifted the job from one that had traditionally been part time to a full time position. (And, in 2017 he successfully got the raise to go with that.)
But Hegarty warned that, if the position isn’t changed, an elected clerk doesn’t have to put in any significant time or effort during their term. And it would take three years for voters to oust them if they were unhappy:
As an elected official, there are no set hours. And you could, I could come in an hour a week, put my shoes up, work whatever you want. That’s the reality if you chose to act that way. And if somebody gets elected and chooses to do that, you’re stuck with that prison for three years. There’s no way to do a recall or anything else.
I know of, off the top of my head, four instances where appointed clerks were very negligent in their job and were fired.
Member Al Hamilton referred to the Town as having been spoiled by the high standard Hegarty has set. Cook noted that it will probably cost the town more to hire someone to replace him.
The brief Article in the draft Warrant doesn’t name who would appoint the Town Clerk. Hegarty explained that the Article uses the legally required language for adopting the appointed version of the position under state statute. But he clarified that under Mass law, the Select Board would be the default appointing authority.
The Select Board voted unanimously to support the Article. Advisory plans to vote at their meeting next week.
