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Date: 9/12/2023
AMHERST — The town is moving ahead with the search for a new permanent police chief by hosting two public listening sessions to exact thoughts and ideas from the community on what they hope to see in the department’s next leader.
The Sept. 12 discussion periods, which took place at 9 a.m. at the Bangs Community Center and at 6 p.m. at the Jones Library were organized by GovHR, an executive search firm contracted by the town to help steer the candidate search process.
Town Manager Paul Bockelman said community input is a necessary component in developing a criteria for potential candidates.
“The intent is to elicit from the public certain characteristics and things that would like to see in a new police chief,” he said.
The meetings were scheduled as morning and evening sessions to accommodate business owners, retirees and those with children in school as well as people working during the day and unable to attend a daytime session.
“The consultants will ask some questions to sort of stimulate conversation but really they’re there to do as much listening as possible in terms of what the town would like to see in the next police chief,” Bockelman said.
Amherst Police Captain Gabriel Ting, a 26-year veteran, has been serving as interim chief since late May after the retirement of longtime Chief Scott Livingstone.
Bockelman said the town has not yet taken applications as the actual job has not yet been posted.
“From these listening sessions we will build a candidate profile that will guide and put that out to people that these are the types of things we’re looking for in a police chief and that will stimulate the candidate pool and hopefully attract people who have those characteristics to apply to our town,” he said.
While Bockelman said there are no restrictions or geographic limitations for those expressing interest in the position, candidates will need to meet the qualifications to be a police chief in Massachusetts.
“We’re casting a broad net but also recognize that we have home grown talent that will be highly competitive,” he said.
Bockelman said he does expect there be internal candidates applying from within the department.
The search process itself is expected to continue through November as the candidate criteria is established through the town manager’s office and the human resources department. Bockelman submitted a timeline to the Town Council detailing a schedule of actions necessary during that period.
As the interim police chief is only permitted to serve 150 days in that role Bockelman said he will ask the council to extend that service a few weeks beyond that time as the search process concludes.