The curtain seems to have closed on a year-long conflict that cut into the Tisbury planning board’s ability to function at full capacity and cost the town thousands in legal fees.
The disagreement stemmed over who has authority over the planning board administrator and raised questions over the public body’s autonomy after the town’s government was restructured by the current town administrator. It was a move that in part led to an ongoing civil suit by the former planning board administrator and both the select board and planning board separately retaining legal counsel over the disagreement.
The planning board unanimously voted on Oct. 21 to issue a statement to the select board accepting a memorandum of understanding regarding authority over the planning body’s administrator. The memo was approved by the select board on Oct. 13.
The planning board’s statement does make requests for changes to the memo, such as to add language explicitly stating that the planning board retains authority over the administrator, but members agreed last week that they will accept the memo either way.
Ben Robinson, planning board chair, told The Times on Monday that this memo “should resolve the original conflicts caused by the [town administrator’s] actions.”
“We still need to accept any applications for the [planning board administrator] position,” Robinson said. “It is currently being advertised[. W]e will interview candidates at our Nov. 4 meeting.”
Tisbury Town Administrator Joe LaCivita was not immediately available for comment.
Since March, the planning board was without a full-time administrator, and its members had to perform tasks usually handled by an administrator before Shawna Lima was hired on a temporary basis in the summer. Lima is the current acting planning board administrator and has been answering to the planning board chair.
The issue sparked last year after LaCivita sent a letter on Oct. 21, 2025 to Amy Upton, the planning board administrator at the time, that directed her to report directly to Greg Monka, the building commissioner and zoning enforcement officer, rather than the planning board chair. Monka as a department head reports to LaCivita, who reports to the select board.
LaCivita’s letter said the change was meant to “strengthen the organizational structure” in Tisbury.
“As we move to improve communication and operations among departments, it is important to have those with similar purposes or objectives working collaboratively with one another and between departments,” LaCivita wrote.
But the decision was met by pushback, and the planning board voiced concern that the restructure would override its jurisdiction. The power of the planning board, an elected body, comes by way of state law.
Meanwhile, Upton filed grievances with her union and sued the town in July, including LaCivita and Monka, with allegations of workplace retaliation after she raised issues against the developer of the controversial 97 Spring Street project as well as wrongful termination and disability discrimination. Some of the allegations trace back to 2024, before LaCivita was hired as town administrator in 2025.
Even before the suit was filed, the planning board’s March 18 minutes, which doesn’t list Upton as present at this meeting and includes an “appearance of retaliation” among the board’s concerns. Upton was placed on administrative leave on March 11, which the minutes state was a week after the planning board voted to file an open meeting law complaint with the state. The complaint was never filed, but they also voted to send the select board a letter requesting Upton be restored to her position or that the two boards meet together over the action. The minutes also contain a “gag order” that prohibited Upton from “communicating with the board or town residents, impeding her defense and the board’s statutory function.” A joint meeting that included discussion of temporary staffing needs was scheduled on April 23.
Upton left the town’s payroll on May 1, according to her complaint, and the two boards scheduled an executive session about her resignation on May 19. The civil suit remains open in Dukes County Superior Court, and the defendants have until Nov. 23 to respond.
Authority over the planning administrator was just one of several instances of inter-board disagreements that spilled out to the public. During her planning board chairship, Casey Hayward hit the select board with an open meeting law complaint in October 2025, and shortly after, made social media posts that called for the “out of touch” select board members to be voted out. She also accused LaCivita of “taking bribes,” referring to the house he lives in that was included in his employment contract. This followed longtime disagreements between the two boards over communication, and each side accused each other of disrespect at a select board meeting later that October.
The two boards even each retained separate counsels to review the matter.
After LaCivita’s letter and several meetings, the extent of the town administrator’s authority over independent boards and committees was almost taken up by voters during the annual town meeting in April. The planning board had introduced a warrant article with aims to amend bylaws that the town administrator “may not unilaterally alter the job description, title, compensation grade, or reporting structure of a position serving an elected or appointed board without that body’s written approval, and creates a dispute-resolution process for disagreements,” and argued in an information sheet that the change was needed to allow the board independent authority to hire its own staff.
But the measure was tabled indefinitely after the two boards agreed to work together to resolve the matter.
Months later, in October, a year after the initial letter was sent out, the two boards came together to discuss a memorandum of understanding, which the select board voted 2-1 to approve, with Connie Alexander as the sole dissenter.
At the joint meeting, there were disagreements about what language should be in the memo describing employment conditions and jurisdiction over the planning board administrator. Robinson said he wouldn’t endorse a memo that didn’t affirmatively state the planning board’s authority over the planning board administrator. LaCivita and Roy Cutrer, select board chair, noted that the proposed document essentially accomplished this by stating the town administrator and human resources department wouldn’t interfere with the planning board and referred to statements from town counsel Brian Mazer, who they said wanted to avoid redundancy in the document.
Robinson accused the town counsel of late changes and had a back and forth with Cutrer during the meeting in a disagreement over the memo’s language. Alexander was in favor of adding the clarification Robinson pursued, although it was voted down in a 2-1 vote by the select board.
John Cahill, select board member, underscored that everyone involved in creating the memo “worked really hard” and said they could “nitpick this to death for another hour” without meaningful progress. He also said that the town spent well over $10,000 over the issue in attorney fees.
“Everybody’s going to have something in there that they don’t like,” Cahill said, calling for the town to move forward. “This has dragged on way too much.”
Cahill expressed hope that the planning board would accept the memo and committed to continue working with them in an “open, transparent way and improve our relationships.”
The planning board was split over the language during the joint meeting and decided to review the select board-approved version.
And the desire to move on won out at last week’s planning board meeting.
“I’d like to be done with it and move on,” Mary Bernadette Budinger-Cormie, planning board member, said, who noted she wanted the board to be able to focus on its regular duties. “I don’t want to spend any more time than I absolutely have to.”
