ORANGE — The final four candidates for the role of police chief in Orange have been interviewed.
The Selectboard interviewed the candidates over two meetings on Wednesday and Thursday nights, after a screening committee — formed by the Selectboard in February — narrowed applicants down to the best four.
Selectboard members asked the candidates questions about experience, prior training, necessary qualities for small-town policing, grant writing and advice the officers would give new recruits.
The interviewees were James Sullivan, acting police chief in Orange; Jamie Berger, detective sergeant in Wayland; Nathan Bowolick, detective sergeant in Boxborough, and C. Thomas O’Donnell, police chief in West Brookfield.
A post-interview discussion on hiring the next police chief is listed on the agenda for the Selectboard’s next meeting, Wednesday, June 5.
Sullivan has served in the Orange Police Department since 2004, rising to the rank of sergeant and the department’s designated second-in-command.
He took over as acting police chief in March, replacing Craig Lundgren, who resigned from the department after five years as police chief. Lundgren has since become police chief in neighboring Athol.
“I applied to be the chief of police in Orange because I love working here,” said Sullivan, who grew up in Athol. “A lot of the business owners, a lot of the residents, are people I’ve known all my life.”
To Sullivan, the best qualities in a police chief are patience, honesty and accessibility, and he said he would continue to be reachable and a familiar face for residents.
“You can’t just sit in your office and crunch numbers and be unreachable,” Sullivan said.
He said being approachable is particularly important in a small town.
“People can go up to a cruiser and tell the officer what’s going on,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan said the town’s budget is a challenge the department faces — indeed, Orange has struggled with financial issues for several years, cutting departments’ requested budgets and, this year, proposing a tax override. He said he would look into finding grants, such as traffic “click it or ticket” grants, as well as grants for new equipment.
Although he doesn’t see the department needing to grow much, Sullivan would like to eventually hire a full-time detective. With a small force, Sullivan said he will ensure his officers are versatile.
“In a town like Orange, when you get in a cruiser and go out, you have to have a good idea of how to handle everything from a skunk going around in circles to a homicide,” Sullivan said.
“I’m not putting my application in to be chief of police anywhere else,” he added. “I want to be chief of police here.”
Berger is the detective division commander, detective sergeant, for the Wayland Police Department. He has been a police officer since 1993 for Wayland, becoming full-time in 1998 and being promoted to sergeant in 2006. He was moved to the position as detective sergeant in 2008.
Berger said he recognizes that he doesn’t have any “institutional knowledge” about the Orange Police Department, but has thoroughly researched the area, talked to former police officers and would make sure the department operates efficiently.
“Communities can be different in many ways, but when we look at it from a law enforcement perspective, towns have a lot of the same issues,” said Berger, naming speeding, break-ins and opioid addiction as problems ubiquitous across Massachusetts.
Wayland, Berger said, is the number one safest community in Massachusetts, and one of the top 10 safest in the country, adding, “I do not think that’s by accident.”
Berger has experience administrating grants, like equipment grants for officers to get new bulletproof vests every five years, and would pursue distracted and drunk driving grants, if hired.
He also said he is a community-oriented police officer, who likes outreach events like reading to children, having coffee with residents or pizza with senior citizens, and operating a “citizens’ police academy.” Building a sense of transparency and trust with the community is important for “when issues arrive,” Berger said, because residents become comfortable with their local police.
Berger called himself a “team player,” who would delegate duties to officers with the most relevant expertise. He is also a big proponent of transparency, and would support having body cameras on police officers’ uniforms.
Bowolick describes himself as “pretty much a jack of all trades when it comes to detective work,” having investigated everything from narcotics crimes to sexual assault during his career in Boxborough.
Bowolick began in 2002 as a part-time dispatcher in Boxborough, becoming a full-time dispatcher in Sterling later that year and moving back to Boxborough as a full-time dispatcher in 2004. He graduated from the Lowell Police Academy in 2005 and was subsequently hired as a full-time patrolman in Boxborough. He became a narcotics officer in 2010, and was then a detective, patrol sergeant and now detective sergeant for the last four years.
The most important qualities for a successful small-town police chief are morality and communication skills, Bowolick said.
“In pretty much any department the budget is the biggest challenge for a police chief,” Bowolick said. “You have to spend within your means and get as much as you can from the money allotted to you.”
In Boxborough, the Police Department has had success with some private funding, including a police motorcycle funded privately, and Bowolick said it would be worth it for Orange to try to raise money via private donations.
“There’s all sorts of ways you can try to prevent crime,” Bowolick said. “You can look at prior stats, times, to see when the crimes are being committed… What I found worked best and what helped me a lot in my career is forming partnerships in town, having those relationships where people get to know you and trust you. Forming those partnerships, you can help prevent crime and then it works toward problem-solving and working together.”
De-escalation and non-escalation and “cultural competence,” courses he has taken at the Wrentham Police Department have been particularly useful, Bowolick said, recognizing that use-of-force has been a “hot topic” and “huge liability” for law enforcement in recent times.
“The de-escalation is calming people down, trying to de-escalate people and calm them down without the use of force. Non-escalation is trying to get officers not to escalate the situation,” Bowolick said, adding that such skills are particularly important for new officers to learn.
O’Donnell has been a police officer for 37 years, the last 22 as police chief in West Brookfield.
“One of the most important (qualities for a police chief) is empathy,” O’Donnell said. “Sometimes the answer is actually, ‘No, we can’t help you,’ but before that you need to exhaust every opportunity that you have at your disposal to help the people that come to you.”
O’Donnell said managing budgets and personnel while also leading the department is something he has experience in. He also has experience writing grants, including annual grants for technology, and has replaced portable radios in the West Brookfield Police Department cruisers using grants.
He is a proponent of body cameras on police officers’ uniforms. Last March, O’Donnell said, there was a quadruple homicide in West Brookfield, after which the presence of body cameras on officers clearing the house was useful to detectives.
“They’ve been a great benefit and I strongly encourage their use,” O’Donnell said.
To new recruits, O’Donnell said he would advise them to be humble.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to speak at a few graduations, and one thing I always tell new officers who are graduating is to not forget where they came from, and who they are, or who they were before they pinned on the badge,” O’Donnell said. “Remember, you’re dealing with people.”
Reach David McLellan at dmclellan@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 268.