GRANBY — The Select Board will decide between two finalists for Granby’s next police chief at a meeting scheduled for Wednesday, Aug 4.
The finalists will be interviewed during a special meeting of the Select Board open to the public. Earlier this month, former chief of police Alan Wishart retired after working in the department for 24 years and having served as chief since 2010. The meeting begins at 5:45 p.m. at the Senior Center on West State Street.
Police Lt. Kevin O’Grady was appointed by the board on July 1 to serve as interim police chief. O’Grady, a Granby resident, has served in the department since 1998 and is one of the two finalists chosen by the town’s screening committee.
The other finalist is Nicholas Maroni, an Athol resident and a lieutenant with the Gardner Police Department.
Five of eight applicants for the job were interviewed by the screening committee before the two finalists were chosen. The board will interview the final two candidates before appointing a new chief of police.
O’Grady began his career in law enforcement with the Granby Police Department in 1998 as a part-time officer. He previously served two years as an auxiliary officer before taking a paid position. He joined the force full-time in 2003, was promoted to sergeant in 2008, and then promoted to lieutenant in 2017. He also holds a master’s degree in criminal justice from Westfield State University.
“I’ve done everything from running investigations to being in charge of the detectives, and being a court officer,” O’Grady said. “I’ve worked side-by-side with Wishart for the last several years running the administrative part.”
Maroni began his career in law enforcement in Nantucket in 2005 as a summer officer and then moved to the Athol Police Department in 2006 as a full-time officer, where he served until 2010. He then transferred to the Gardner Police Department, where he served four years as a patrol officer, followed by four years as a sergeant and three as the community policing lieutenant. He has a master’s degree in criminal justice, with a focus on public administration, from Southern New Hampshire University.
“With the current position I’ve had, I’ve really taken a more active role in the police department and the community,” Maroni said. “Community policing is my wheelhouse, being out there in the community, building relationships, especially with the youth given the past year.”
As the community policing lieutenant, Maroni said he is the liaison for the public schools in Gardner and he oversees the school resource officer. He sits on several committees within the city working to bring resources to treat opioid addictions and he is in charge of the department’s Junior Police Academy and Citizens’ Police Academy, which are educational programs that allow participants to learn about the Gardner Police Department’s practices and services, according to the department’s website.
Maroni said he is in charge of all department grants, and he is in the process of applying for a grant that would fund a clinician to join one of their police units.
“I’m familiar with Granby because my wife works in Hadley,” Maroni said. “We are in that area frequently. This is the first place I’ve applied for as a chief of police, and I told myself, it would have to be the right community to make that jump. It seems like a good fit.”
Luis Fieldman can be reached at lfieldman@gazettenet.com.