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Date: 9/26/2023
AMHERST — The community will have more opportunities to offer their thoughts and perspectives on the town’s search for a new, permanent police chief. That word, coming from Town Manager Paul Bockelman after the town hosted two public listening sessions and has been soliciting input online.
Bockelman spoke to the Town Council at the Sept. 18 meeting and said he had received some initial feedback from the consulting group assisting in the search process.
“We are going to be adding more listening, more transparency to the process,” Bockelman said.
GovHR, an Illinois based search firm hosted the in-person listening sessions on Sept. 13, asking questions of attendees to gather community sentiment and suggestions in what they would like to see in the next police leader.
The consultant team working with the town consists of a former police official and a diversity, equity and inclusion professional. The same firm is assisting in the police search for the city of Somerville.
“There needs to be transparency in the process,” Bockelman told the council. “And that’s on me to make that happen.”
Bockelman said in addition to planned, virtual sessions, there is a form on the town website where the same questions from the consultants asked in the public listening sessions are available to be answered online by members of the community.
“There’s going to be a demand for more opportunities, and also some folks are nervous about going into in-person sessions with COVID and things like that, so we know we have to additional online outreach and things like that,” he said.
Bockelman said there is a form on the town website where the same questions from the consultants asked in the public listening sessions are available to be answered online by members of the community.
Captain Gabriel Ting has been serving as the department’s temporary police chief since May when Chief Paul Livingstone retired from the position.