By Mike Donoghue, Senior Correspondent
The selectboard members in Weathersfield have voted unanimously to cancel the town’s patrol contract with the Windsor County Sheriff’s Department, and the community is looking to join with Reading and Cavendish to form a regional police force.
The possible creation of the Mount Ascutney Regional Police Department will be discussed during a joint meeting of officials from the three municipalities on Thursday, Feb. 26, at the Town Hall on U.S. 5 in Ascutney.
The meeting is planned for 6:30 p.m. and will be on Zoom to encourage public involvement across the three towns.
The regional proposal comes in the wake of the arrest of Windsor County Sheriff Ryan Palmer on seven criminal charges, including sexual misconduct. The Vermont State Police criminal investigation began with questions about finances within the sheriff’s department, but soon spread to other issues.
Palmer has agreed to step back and leave the department in the hands of former longtime Chief Deputy Sheriff Claude Weyant. Weyant has said the department is still continuing to do its work, including patrol contracts, court security, prisoner transports, and serving legal papers.
But some towns are looking for a new alternative.
Weathersfield Town Manager Brandon W. Gulnick told the Vermont Standard on Tuesday he has been in discussion with Cavendish Town Manager Richard Chambers and Reading Selectboard chair Bob Allen about their law enforcement concerns.
A regional police force with more local control seemed to make sense, he said.
Weathersfield, which for many years had its own municipal police department, signed a five-year patrol contract with the sheriff’s department starting June 1, 2025. It called for 100 hours of patrols per week, but there was a provision for up to about 20 more hours a week for emergency calls.
Reading has a contract with the sheriff’s department for about 12 hours a week, and Cavendish has an agreement for about eight hours a week, Gulnick said.
Gulnick said the initial thought is to have a regional police force with five sworn officers — a police chief with two full-time patrol officers and two part-time officers. They would cover the three towns for about 150 hours a week, he said.
The idea would be to conduct a national search for the new police chief, Gulnick said.
The three towns are contiguous and form a geographic “L” shape. It should make it easy for the police officers on patrol to respond to emergencies in any of the towns.
Gulnick said Weathersfield had 1,373 calls for service last year. He said Reading had 253 calls for police and Cavendish had another 227 calls.
The preliminary funding idea is to allocate the same amount of town money that is budgeted for the coming fiscal year, Gulnick said.
The agenda for the meeting next week calls for a discussion about a conceptual framework for collaboration among the three towns and discussion for potential future expansion to other interested towns.
Gulnick said the agenda also includes discussion on some other cost variables, including dispatching services and having a facility.
Another idea is the regional department would have a seven-member police commission to help oversee its operation. Two members would come from both Cavendish and Reading, while Weathersfield would have three members, Gulnick said.
He stressed the ideas are still in their infancy and will be talked out at future meetings.
Weathersfield had a five-page contract with the Windsor County Sheriff’s Department that included a provision that allowed the town to terminate the patrol contract for no cause. It required a 120-day notice to end it.
The Weathersfield Selectboard voted 5-0 last week to pull the plug on the contract.
It followed a special selectboard meeting behind closed doors for 39 minutes on Feb. 3 to discuss contracts. No action was taken, but the Selectboard also met again in executive session for about an hour on Feb. 9.
When the public portion of that meeting resumed, the motion to terminate the contract was made by selectboard member Michael Todd and seconded by Nathan McNaughton. It passed unanimously, according to the minutes.
A second motion authorizing the chair, Kelley O’Brien, to sign the notice of termination also passed 5-0.
A third motion also passed unanimously authorizing O’Brien to sign a letter to offer to purchase the former assets of the Weathersfield Police Department from the sheriff’s department. The town sold about $140,000 worth of its police equipment, guns, ammunition, and tasers to the sheriff’s department last year.
They also sold at least three fully equipped police vehicles: They include a 2023 Dodge Durango with 13,362 miles and a 2023 Ford Explorer with 27,129 miles, records show.
The exchanged property was designed to help outfit the deputies who were assigned to the patrols in the town.
Deputy Sheriffs Michael J. Keefe and Craig Watrous were assigned for about a combined 80 hours a week, with the remainder of the patrols mostly split among other deputies in the department.
Under the contract, the Sheriff’s Department was expected to provide a dedicated presence in Weathersfield, ensuring timely response to calls for service, patrol coverage, and community-focused policing.