Westfield Police Chief John Camerota
WESTFIELD- The Westfield Police Commission will meet Monday evening for its first regularly scheduled meeting of the year to discuss several new appointments of police officers.
The first major item on the agenda is the annual appointment of special police officers. Attached to the agenda item is a list of 26 people who will be considered for the annual appointment. All new appointments of officers come in the wake of a staffing crisis in the police department.
Police Chief John Camerota, who has been in the department for more than 40 years, said he has never seen a staffing problem like this before. As of this month, the police department expects to have 17 officers on leave for various reasons ranging from injury to military deployment. The department has begun pulling officers from special units to run regular patrol shifts. More recently, when students returned from winter break the school resource officers were not present.
The next agenda item will be to interview and appoint a full-time lieutenant to replace lieutenant Michael Ugolik, who is planning to retire in February. The only name on the active list is that of Sgt. Steve Dickinson.
The commission will also interview and appoint an officer to the position of full-time Sergeant. There are three names under consideration in the active list: Officers Juanita Mejias, William Cavanaugh, and Seth Florek. Both the appointment of a new sergeant and lieutenant would be effective February 16th.
As Chief Camerota had indicated in the past, the commission will also appoint seven full-time officers who have not yet attended the police academy. There are nine people under consideration for the seven openings: Kevin Gabryel, Robert Reyome, Steven Wood, Joseph Kelley, Kyle Allen, Brian Turgeon, Zachary Coderre, Patrick Lusteg, and Andrew Harris.
The seven that will be chosen do not yet have an effective start date. They must receive a waiver to begin work before they attend the police academy. The academy does not start until June but the department cannot wait six months for new officers. The Police Commission will also vote to create a list of people to fill five reserve officer positions at the February meeting.
The new appointments come after the finance committee voted to grant $100,000 in overtime funds to the police department. Due to the staff shortages, remaining officers have had to work longer hours to maintain minimum staffing standards. As a result, the overtime budget was being quickly depleted.
“We’re taking measures to hopefully get through the rest of the fiscal year,” said Chief Camerota.
