Overview:
Royalston's search for a new chief of police has been restarted after the sudden resignation of Templeton Police Sgt. Steve Flis, who was appointed in March. The Selectboard will interview the two recommended finalists, whose names have not yet been announced, on Thursday. The interviews are scheduled for 5 p.m. at Town Hall, followed by an executive session to discuss the candidates at 6 p.m.
ROYALSTON – On Thursday, the Selectboard will interview the finalists for the next chief of police.
The search for a new chief was restarted following the sudden resignation of Templeton Police Sgt. Steve Flis, who was appointed in March as Royalston’s chief following a three-month search.
Flis was sworn in on Tuesday, March 31, but abruptly resigned on April 7. At the time, he told the Athol Daily News that he felt the decision was best for his family.
Linda Alger, chair of the search committee, said the board is planning to meet in open session to interview the two recommended finalists. The finalists, whose names haven’t yet been announced, are among the four who applied for the position.
The interviews are scheduled for 5 p.m. at Town Hall, to be followed by an executive session to discuss the candidates at 6 p.m. The board then plans to reconvene in open session at 7 p.m. but the announcement of a new chief is not on the posted agenda.
“We’ve been meeting since June 16 and the first meeting was just really to do introductions and discuss what our charge was,” Alger said. “We left that meeting with the sense that we needed to develop questions for our interview process, the committee’s interview process.”
The committee’s members are retired Phillipston Police Chief Dana Cooley, retired Westminster Chief Michael McDonald, Winchendon Police Chief Dan Wolski, who lives in Royalston, Ashburnham Police Chief Chris Conrad, retired Royalston Police Lt. Roland Hamel, resident Joe Liebman and Alger.
“It was a very different committee than the first committee,” said Alger. “There were no lay people on that committee and it was a lot bigger than the current committee.”
Alger said interviews of the applicants took place in an executive session on June 30. All of them, she said, had applied during the earlier search, when 12 were considered. Two of the four had been among the finalists in the first search.
“The (current) committee discussed the previous go-round and why that applicant didn’t stay. This is a whole new animal for Royalston,” she said, noting that the town has never had a full-time police chief.
Alger had nothing but praise for her committee members.
“They all took this process very seriously, very professionally,” she said. “They all deserve a lot of thanks for the work they did.”