The town of Weathersfield has a new chief for its new police department.
Craig Watrous Jr., most recently a patrol corporal with the Windsor County Sheriff’s Department, took the oath of office Tuesday evening as the leader of the newly rebuilt town police department. He started on the road Wednesday.
His father Craig Watrous Sr., a longtime Vermont police officer, pinned the gold badge on his son during the ceremony at the Town Hall. His father is a part-time officer currently with Fair Haven Police in Rutland County.
The new chief offered some brief comments and said he was looking forward to building the new department.
Two-man delegations from the Windsor County Sheriff’s Department, Bellows Falls and Springfield Police Departments were on hand for the ceremony.
Watrous, 37, will be paid $87,500 a year, Weathersfield Town Manager Brandon Gulnick said.
The new department will be dispatched through the Woodstock Emergency Dispatch Center. Weathersfield has agreed to pay about $40,000 a year to Woodstock.
Attempts to obtain comments from Woodstock Municipal Manager Eric Duffy or Interim Police Chief Chris O’Keeffe were unsuccessful.
For at least the time being, Weathersfield Police can be reached through the Woodstock Police phone number, Watrous said.
Gulnick said Watrous was one of six candidates for the job, including two with experience as police chiefs. The six were whittled to three by a local screening committee, who conducted interviews and eventually recommended Watrous as the lone finalist, the manager said.
Watrous told the Vermont Standard he is state certified as a Level II police officer, which limits the types of crimes he can investigate. He said he hopes to become certified as a Level III fulltime police officer through the Vermont Police Academy so he can investigate the more serious crimes. The fulltime academy course is normally 17 weeks.
He said for the time being in some serious cases, like homicides, untimely deaths, aggravated assaults, robberies, sexual assaults, he would need to rely on an outside agency.
For more on this, please see our May 7 edition of the Vermont Standard.
