Harwich Charter Commission Backs Supermajority Requirement for Wastewater Superintendent Termination

HARWICH — April 16, 2026 — Harwich Charter Commission debates wastewater charter language and town manager title as September state filing deadline nears. The commission, meeting April 16 at Town Hall, voted 6-0 to approve its April 9 minutes and spent the bulk of the session reviewing a red-line charter draft with input from Noreen Donahue of the Water and Wastewater Commission, who secured consensus on two points: clarifying that a four-fifths supermajority applies to superintendent termination but not discipline, and restoring a key sentence — assigning Select Board responsibility for sewer system design, construction, and Comprehensive Wastewater Management Plan implementation — to the wastewater section of the charter, not just the Select Board section. Donahue also described a financial reporting breakdown in which year-end journal entries affecting wastewater retained earnings were processed without her department's knowledge, generating roughly 200 hours of corrective work, and asked the commission to require Finance Department notification for any entries touching enterprise funds. Public commenter Bob Nickerson argued that "town manager" carries meaningfully more authority than "town administrator," citing Falmouth, Chatham, and Barnstable as towns that use the manager title with fuller job descriptions. The commission set a public informational meeting for June 18 and said drafting of a required preliminary report to the state Attorney General must begin in July for a mid-September submission.