Past practice doesn't make perfect

As Ashby says good-bye to Police Chief Steve McLatchy,

who has worked himself to the point where he just needed to stop, town officials need to make a decision about how they are going to fill the role and how they are going to look at the organization of the town.

They are stuck between the place of: do they just make do with employees with minimal training and therefore minimal salaries, or do they raise the standards and raise the salaries.

It seems like the easy decision should be raise the qualifications and raise the salary.

The sleepy New England towns of the past aren't so sleepy any more. Towns like Ashby, which has just more than 3,000 people, are still facing issues with illegal immigrations, drug use and trafficking as well as shoplifting and speeding. Police departments are facing issues of protecting residents from predators - sexual and fraudulent - on the Internet.

Town officials seem to realize they need a chief with this type of training and experience, but they run into the problem of how to pay him or her.

Selectmen and finance committee members spent two hours arguing over the salary for a potential police chief because the budget is so tight. (See story on front page.) They don't think residents, who rejected an override earlier this month for town expenses, will support a tax increase to raise salaries.

It is time for residents to voice their opinions to the town officials and say they will support the increase in the salary for a well-trained and well-qualified police chief.

Because right now town officials think residents care more about their tax bills then raising the standards for the head of their public safety department.

Ashby residents either need to let the town officials know that their priority is their safety or they need to rethink their priorities.

The chief is the person who will staff and manage the department. He or she will be the person that creates new programming and training, the person who will set the law enforcement prioritizes in the town.

It is time for the town officials and the residents of Ashby to shoot high and see if they can attract that perfect chief. The chief who is willing to work alongside the community members but also the one who is going to realize that crime does hit the small old sleepy New England towns.

But in order to do this, residents need to tell their town officials it is what they want.