Gov. Maura Healey appointed a police chief to the state’s highly effective panel that licenses legislation enforcement in Massachusetts on Thursday simply as one other commissioner is quitting.
Healey tapped Framingham Police Department Chief Lester Baker to serve on the Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission. Baker, who was sworn in nearly earlier than a morning assembly, replaces Pittsfield Police Chief Michael Wynn.
As Baker joined, officers instructed the Herald that Healey and Attorney General Andrea Campbell are nearing a choice on Chaplain Clementina Chéry’s substitute. Chéry despatched a letter in March informing the pair that she meant to resign from her POST commissionership on April 14 or upon the appointment of her successor, whichever got here later.
In the March 23 letter obtained by the Herald, Chéry stated she believed it was time to return to giving her “undivided attention” to the Louis D. Brown Institute, which she leads and co-founded.
“I am thus ready to let another deserving individual have the privilege of serving the public as a POST commissioner,” Chéry wrote within the letter. “My understanding is that the governor and attorney general would appoint a successor to fill the unexpired portion of my term, which is set to expire on April 1, 2025.”
The letter was additionally addressed to the chair of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, which has a hand in figuring out one POST Commission appointment.
Chéry couldn’t be reached for remark Thursday afternoon at her Louis D. Brown Institute workplace cellphone. An e mail to the institute’s media workplace was not instantly answered. A spokesperson for the institute didn’t instantly return a cellphone name.
POST Commission Executive Director Enrique Zuniga stated Chéry knowledgeable the POST Commission that she was leaving for “a couple of personal reasons.”
“She agreed to stay until there was a replacement,” he stated in a cellphone name with the Herald. “So that has not yet been an issue for us. But she … predicts that there’s potential conflicts for her and she asked to be replaced.”
Baker fills one in all two vacancies on the fee and was a sole appointment of Healey. Chéry’s spot is a joint appointment of the governor and lawyer normal and the pair might want to agree on a substitute.
There can also be one other emptiness on the fee that Healey and Campbell might want to fill. A Healey spokesperson stated the place has been posted with a deadline of Aug. 16.
A Campbell spokesperson stated the lawyer normal is “conducting a thorough process to ensure that all POST appointments are reflective of our shared priorities.”
The Healey spokesperson stated the governor is working with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination to call a successor to Chéry.
POST Commission officers realized about Baker’s appointment Wednesday evening after the fee found earlier within the day that it might not have the ability to meet quorum necessities throughout the Thursday assembly.
The statutory quorum is seven commissioners and solely six had been current on Thursday. Two commissioners had been absent for “personal reasons,” a spokesperson for the POST Commission stated.
Zuniga stated the turnover on the regulatory physique doesn’t have a “detrimental effect.”
“I would say it does make us have to onboard people, new ones, and then get them up to speed because we’ve done a fair amount of work,” Zuniga stated. “It’s part of the process. We recognize that’s something that’s going to happen with some regularity for whatever reason and we’re prepared to do that.”
In her resignation letter, Chéry stated it was a “tremendous” honor to function an inaugural commissioner for the previous two years.
Former Gov. Charlie Baker and then-Attorney General Healey chosen Chéry to serve on the POST Commission as one of many first members of the physique. Chéry and different inaugural members had been sworn in on the State House in April 2021 by Baker.
“In that time, the commission has achieved a great deal,” Chéry wrote within the March letter. “It has fulfilled its duties to certify or recertify thousands of law enforcement officers; to initiate disciplinary proceedings against officers who reportedly committed misconduct or failed to complete training; and to promulgate regulations and policies governing the above matters, the use of force by officers, and other areas.”
Commissioner Baker, who was current at Thursday’s assembly, began as a police officer in April 1996, serving as a patrolman for the Lexington Police Department. He joined the Framingham Police Department in January 2003 and shortly labored his approach up the ranks to deputy chief by May 2018.
Healey stated she was proud to nominate Baker to the POST Commission.
“He has dedicated his life to public service and public safety, and has prioritized public engagement, training, diversion and giving back to the communities he serves,” Healey stated in an announcement.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”