Renew Chief Rivera's Contract

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We, the citizens of the town of Granville, petition the town Select Board to renew Chief Jose Rivera’s contract with the town and restore him as Chief of Police prior to his contract end date of 7/31/2013.

 

Chief Rivera, in the 7 years he has spent in Granville as Chief of Police, has transformed an inefficient department into one that is professional in every sense of the word, from report writing to standardized uniforms and equipment. Prior to Chief Rivera’s taking leadership of the department, there were no scheduled routine patrols, only “on call” response. The following is a list of things Chief Rivera has put his own time and resources into building:

  • Improved relationships with neighboring police departments where there was none.  Since 2008, Granville has enjoyed Mutual Aid agreements with both the Southwick and Granby (CT) departments.
  • Formal field training for all new police officers, which had never existed prior to Chief Rivera coming to Granville.
  • He has planned, coordinated, and conducted the following:
    • The Bike Rodeo for the past 6 years.
    • The Citizen’s Police Academy.
    • The Jr. Police Academy for the past 4 years.
    • The Memorial Day and July 4th Parade details.
    • Under his guidance, the Granville Police Department has been able to respond to approximately 65% of calls utilizing a part-time staff.  Of this 65%, Chief Rivera has responded personally to close to half this number.
    • Chief Rivera works his standard 40 hours a week however, the training of the new officers, meetings with other town departments, setting up for special events such as the Citizen’s Police Academy, coordinating Active Shooter training, and many hours of paperwork and court appearances were performed on his own time.
    • He initiated the Mountain Bike patrol by purchasing 2 mountain bikes and certifying several officers for that purpose.
    • In 2012, Chief Rivera initiated the purchase of a new state-of-the-art Ford Interceptor to replace the 12-year-old Chevy Tahoe.

All the above activities and more have been achieved with a budget that’s a fraction of that of towns which have a similar population, e.g., Chilmark’s budget is close to $1 million/year.

Chief Rivera even went as far as to uproot his family and move into town to further validate his commitment to our community.

 

We the undersigned demand that Chief Jose Rivera’s contact be renewed for 3 years to enable him to continue to provide the ongoing high quality of police service to the town of Granville.