WESTFIELD – The Police Commission voted last night to appoint eight candidates to the department’s reserve officer roster, bringing that force back to full strength following the appointment of four reservists to the department’s patrol force last week.
The appointment of the new reserve officers, from which full-time officers are appointed, was needed because the commission appointed four reservists to the patrol force at a special meeting last week.
The Police Commission, for the second time, appointed Steven Clement, Zachary Demers and Aaron Spiller to full-time posts effective Aug. 17 when they will begin training at the Western Massachusetts Police Training Academy in Springfield.
The Commission had appointed those three reservists to the department’s patrol force on May 11, but had to rescind that action at the board’s June 15 meeting because of cuts to the department’s 2016 fiscal year budget.
The City Council voted earlier this month to return $146,000 to the police budget to restore funding for the department’s three School Resource Officers (SRO) positions, creating vacancies in the patrol force filled by the appointments last week. That funding had been eliminated from the department’s proposed budget.
School resource officers are assigned to Westfield High School and the Westfield Technical Academy (formerly Westfield Vocational Technical High School) while one officer is assigned to both of the school district’s middle schools.
The commission Monday night also appointed Anthony Saltmarsh to the patrol force effective Aug. 17, filling a vacancy created by the resignation of Andrew Vega, who was also appointed at the May 11 meeting. Vega resigned to take an engineering position with a construction company.
Vega has submitted his resignation with a request to be returned to the department’s reserve force, a request that was rejected by the commission.
Last night the Police Commission interviewed 15 candidates for the reserve force appointments. Appointed were Scott Schuster, Bradley White, Jon Barhe, Zachary Florek, Jared Hague, Edward Tosado, Taylor Derrig, and Kevin Gabryel.
