New Springfield Board of Police Commissioners meets for first time Monday

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WGGB/WSHM) – The Springfield Board of Police Commissioners met for the first time Monday afternoon. This came after a long court battle between the Springfield City Council and the mayor of Springfield.

Mayor Domenic Sarno named the five police commissioners to the new board in line with a Supreme Judicial Court ruling earlier this year.

With this first meeting Monday, the board now takes on the responsibility of hiring, firing and any disciplinary action involving police officers in the department. This was the role of now-Police Superintendent Cheryl Clapprood.

Among the items on the agenda Monday was selecting a chair, and that person is Gary Berte. He is a criminal justice professor at Springfield College and a former Springfield Police officer.

Western Mass News asked him what he wants the public to know about the board’s goals moving forward.

“The first thing, really, is to rebuild trust across many members of the community that have some concerns about the way disciplinary matters have been handled in the past,” Berte said. “So, we’re going to play an active role in that.”

Earlier Monday, the city council’s public safety committee held a meeting focused on the new Board of Police Commissioners. Committee Chairman Victor Davila had this to say about working with the board moving forward:

“Helping the police commission to the best of our abilities from where we can, He said. “They’re going to have an extremely difficult job, at least from my perspective. As chairman of the committee on public safety, my goal is to help them achieve their objective.”

The public safety committee plans to meet with members of the board in the coming weeks.

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