The Webster select board made a long-awaited announcement Monday night: the town has hired a new part-time police chief.
“The select board has offered a conditional offer of employment for police chief to Ben Liberatore,” select board Chairman Bruce Johnson said. “He has accepted.”
Liberatore has been employed by the Connecticut state police, and Johnson said he was the No. 1 choice by the oral review board, a group of law enforcement officials and a Webster resident who looked over applications.
“He is not new to New Hampshire,” Johnson added, noting Liberatore grew up in the Granite State and attended Daniel Webster College in Nashua.
Johnson also said there’s the potential for Liberatore to work full-time in Webster in the future, since Liberatore is not a retired New Hampshire police officer and is not bound by a 32-hour work week in order to collect a state pension and a salary.
Liberatore begins his position Oct. 1, when he will double Webster’s currently one-man police department. Former part-time chief Robert Dupuis resigned from his position in February, and officer Dan Shapiro handed in his resignation earlier this month.
Interim Chief Phil Mitchell has been overseeing the department in the meantime.
Liberatore, Johnson said, “will be a fresh face and a fresh start.”
The hiring marks the end of a nine-month period in which the town debated hiring a full- or part-time chief, initially did not receive applications from qualified candidates and saw campaign-like signs and letters advocating for Mitchell or Shapiro to become the chief.
The last round of advertising and applications were for a part-time police chief position with a $56,000 to $60,000 salary and no benefits. The new chief will oversee two full-time officers, a part-time administrator and a $300,000 budget.
As to how this will all play out with Liberatore, Johnson said, “Stay tuned.”
At least one resident congratulated the select board on choosing a candidate to hire, though other residents questioned why the board didn’t choose an existing officer for the chief position and whether the town really had the money for a full-time chief or not.
Jaye Bowe requested time on the agenda Monday night because, she said, perhaps the town should focus on getting its “house in order” financially before worrying about a new police chief.
Select board members said in return that because this process has taken so much time, they’ve done due diligence to make sure both the police department and the town have their needs met.
“We worked really hard to find a really good person,” Johnson said. “It’s going to work out – let’s stay positive, let’s try to pull the community together.”
Sue Roberts, wife of fire Chief and Road Agent Emmett Bean, asked that the town focus on a challenge affecting every corner of the state: drug addiction.
The issue was especially pressing in Webster, she said, after Saturday night when fire department volunteers responded first to an overdose and an “untimely” death.
“Drugs are our biggest problem,” Roberts said. “It never rang truer on Saturday night . . . when I had two members of my family come in the door, and they both needed to be held.”
She added of the volunteers in the department, “I think we’re going to wear out our resources, and we only have a few. . . . We need to prioritize what we’re going to do.”
Resident Barbara Corliss asked whether Narcan – an overdose-reversal drug – was carried by police officers in town.
“We have it on our truck,” Bean, the fire chief, responded. “The EMTs are the only ones we authorize to do that.”
Mitchell, the interim police chief, said his department doesn’t have Narcan on hand, though could get it with training.
Resident Richard Inman suggested the select board talk with surrounding towns about creating a “safe haven” for people struggling with addiction and discuss solutions.
The select board agreed something more could be done. Board member Mike Borek said, “When the new police chief comes in, we can work more on that with the fire department.”
He added of Liberatore, “I believe he’s had some good experience there. He talked about that.”
(Elodie Reed can be reached at 369-3306, ereed@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @elodie_reed.)