The select board met on May 6, 2026, to appoint a new police chief following the termination of the sheriff's department contract earlier that year. The meeting included a town manager update, a swearing-in ceremony, and an executive session regarding a legal matter on Old Bow Road.
I feel that's a very good one. Sorry, I think it is nothing. No, I'm not that position. Oh, yeah. So we call me, but it's very nice. Ladies and gentlemen, it's lovely to see you all here at the full house tonight. Um had an emergency, so I'm Rika Henderson. I'm the vice chair, and I will run the meeting tonight. So welcome everybody. And uh Mr. Wattrus, for this momentous occasion, would you like to lead the pledge? Sure. Pledgibly of the United States of America and the Republic for religious hands, one nation under God, the indivisible with liberty command out with all. Um our first order of business is uh the town manager update. So you're on here. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for coming tonight. Um back in February of this year, we faced another major challenge in the town of Windows Fail. And we made the decision to terminate the contract with the sheriff's department at that time. Um we were a castle film in the Wellnessfield Police Department in the ground up in 120 days. Um we provided a preliminary timeline and immediately got to work. I want to thank the Don of Woodstock, the Woodstock Select Board, the town manager in Woodstock, Eric Duffy for extending dispatching services to the town of Wellnessfield. I also want to thank the Vermont State Police, especially Christian Padotti, emergency communications director for his knowledge, experience, and guidance as we developed our police department. His assistance was invaluable as we advanced our communication system in the Count of Withersville. In February and March, we uh we released a timeline to the town of Wellnessfield for the establishment of the police department, which called for a police chief to take office between May 4th and May 15th. That included Trevor Whipple, the law enforcement consultant from the Mont League of Cities and Towns. It also consisted of Rini Beth Main, Zachary Van Balkenberg, Tom Leach, Brian Redmond, Roderick Bates, Josh Staffin, Rika Henderson, and Suzanne Tarrell. And I want to thank each of them for their work and dedication throughout this process. We received application packages for the police chief position, and they were turned over to this group, many of which have extensive law enforcement experience. The panel interviewed three candidates and advanced one candidate to Suzanne and me for a second round interview. Following that interview, I extended a conditional offer of employment to Craig Wattress, pending the successful completion of a background investigation. Considering everything going on in the news, I thought it would be pretty informally to just kind of walk through the background investigation process that we went through. Of course, we we did four different consent waivers, the town of Windowsfield background investigation consent waiver, NCPA request for criminal record check, Vermont Law Enforcement Waiver and Authorization for Disclosures, the Town of Wethersfield General Waiver, and basically that gave us broad authority to do a background investigation. We checked Vermont Crown Inclamation Center. We did four reference checks, which led to various other reference checks, and then I also contacted law enforcement in the area at random that I've worked with over the past seven years. Checks cleared. We did a credential verification. We did a warrant enforcement inquiry into the residence jurisdiction that Craig Watch works for. So I actually talked to the police chief in the town that he resides. We did a financial background investigation, prior military experience review, children and financial support review. We did one, two, three, four, five prior employment checks, fingerprint check, DMB check, drug test, personnel history review, domestic partner interviews, polygraph, MPI, medical physical assessment, and I also conducted interviews with the Winden County States Attorney, Windsor County State's Attorney. Um, and then I spoke with the Caledonia County State's Attorney. I'm gonna say this you you truly get to know someone through a background investigation like this. This background investigation took me from a little over two weeks to do. Um and I cannot say enough good things about Craig Watchers. Um he comes to this town with extensive law enforcement experience, and I'm confident that he's gonna do an outstanding job for the town of Wettersfield. I also want to extend a special thank you to Windsor County State's attorney Ward Good Enough for his experience, leadership, and guidance throughout this process. Additionally, I want to thank the dozens of law enforcement professionals and agencies I spoke with as part of this process. A lot of people took a lot of time to either sit down with me or have interviews over the phone, and that gave us the knowledge that we needed to proceed with it with the author and Craig Watchers. I stand here today incredibly honored to appoint the town's ex police chief.