Colleen Morris, the sitting Oak Bluffs town clerk, plans to resign in the new year, but will serve as the acting clerk until the spring election. 

The select board voted Monday to appoint Ms. Morris as the acting clerk through to the April election, though she will step down on Jan. 3. 

Ms. Morris, who served as the assistant town clerk for three years before taking over for Laura Johnson in 2020, told the board on Dec. 6 that she planned to step down for health and family reasons. 

“With the state election year behind us as a Town, the beginning of the calendar year is quite favorable with regards to a new person taking over this position,” Ms. Morris wrote in her letter of resignation. “It’s a clean slate, which leaves plenty of room for learning and development for the new town clerk to prepare for the state election year 2028.”

The town clerk position in Oak Bluffs is elected, so Ms. Morris can only serve as an acting clerk until the town appoints an interim, or the town election. The newly elected clerk would serve an abbreviated term for one year — the time that Ms. Morris had left in her term.

The town has grappled with whether to make the town clerk position an appointed role in the past. As with any other elected official, the town clerk needs to be a resident of Oak Bluffs. An appointed clerk, however, could live in any town, or even off-Island.

Earlier this year, ahead of the spring town meeting, the select board decided to pull an article from the town meeting warrant that would have changed the position. At the time, the board was split on whether to bring the change to town meeting floor, with some officials arguing it can be hard to find a qualified person to fill the position who lives within the borders of the town. 

For example, if the town clerk moved to another town, the town would have to find a new person for the role. 

“If our town clerk lost her house, she would be immediately out of the job,” town administrator Deborah Potter said at the meeting this spring. 

Ms. Potter raised the potential again Monday of moving to an appointed clerk. If the board wanted to go that direction, it would need to get an article on the town meeting warrant, and the measure would also need to pass at the ballot box. 

Though the merits of an appointed clerk weren’t brought up Monday, four of the sitting board members voted against the article earlier this year. 

Board chair Gail Barmakian previously worried that an appointed clerk would be less independent. 

“I feel that the integrity of that position would be severely compromised, should it be appointed, ” she said.

According to Ms. Morris, the town clerk’s role in the coming months is helping to run the town election and town meeting, as well as several other day-to-day duties. 

Ms. Morris, who also worked as the zoning board of appeals clerk from 2012 to 2019, was grateful for her tenure with Oak Bluffs. 

“No matter where I have worked (three town halls and a trailer during the pandemic), and no matter what position I have served...my commitment to public service and the protection of democracy has always been a priority and unwavering with the town,” she wrote in her letter.