EAST?LONGMEADOW – Police Chief Douglas Mellis, who has served as head of the Police Department for more than a decade, shared his thoughts about leaving the town prior to his contract expiring on March 31.

Mellis told Reminder Publications he will miss the men and women in the department with whom he has worked closely during the past 11 years.

“How do you just walk away from them and slip away?” he asked. “Some of these officers I remember as young kids when I started and to see the changes that have occurred in their lives is truly amazing.”

He continued, “The people in town and the various business owners will be missed as well. We had a history of working well with the departments in East Longmeadow as well as various department heads. We all had a piece in making this town a very safe and healthy community and that is a very strong tribute to these employees and their department heads.”

The Board of Selectmen decided to advertise for Mellis’ job at its Jan. 12 meeting. The selectmen’s decision was based on high police overtime budgets in recent years. Mellis, a Springfield resident, applied for the police chief job, but was not ranked a finalist by the Police Search Committee. The selectmen also included a residency requirement for the position, which was not previously part of the job’s requirements.

The board chose to hire Police Sgt. Jeff Dalessio as the town’s new chief, following a brief search process in which the two other finalists – former West Springfield Police Capt. Daniel O’Brien and Hampden Police Chief Jeff Farnsworth dropped out.

Mellis said he believes Dalessio is a “very quick learner” and would be quite capable as East Longmeadow’s new police chief.

“I have had the pleasure of working with him over these 11 years and he has been involved in many sensitive cases in the area of drug investigations,” Mellis noted. “I believe he will do a fine job. He will find his own comfort level and will develop a staff of support personnel to help him on his mission as chief. My words of advice to him aren’t necessary, as he does this already – treat everyone with respect.”

He added since the selectmen’s decision to start a search process to find a new chief, he’s received support from residents.

“These recent issues have left me in awe of the number of residents who have either called or mailed letters or just stopped me out in town to express their shock as to what was taking place in town,” Mellis said. “I have never professed to be the perfect police officer or chief for that fact, but I have always tried my best to do the job as well as I could and to find resources to help where there might have been deficiencies.”

The selectmen also chose to cut the police overtime budget from $320,000 down to $200,000.  In response, to these cuts, the Appropriations Committee recommended bringing the overtime budget back to $300,000 as well as hiring an additional police officer beyond the two new hires proposed by the selectmen.

Mellis said he believes the biggest needs for the department in the future is to create adequate staffing levels, which would help curb overtime.

The department would need to hire four additional police officers in order to reach a recommended staffing level of 32 officers, he explained.

“We had an officer retire last August and we have another pending retirement this July,” Mellis said. “I’m still waiting to fill two positions that I had asked for.”

He added the town missed the last wind of opportunity to send officers to the Springfield Police Academy.

“We’re going to hope that they have one in the early fall in Western [Massachusetts],” he explained. “They have other academies throughout the state, but they have nothing planned until I think August. It’s a 22-week academy. So you can go out and hire three new officers in August or September and you’re not going to see those people until February.”

Police departments are not granted annual state funding to offset costs, but there are discussions on the state level of creating a funding formula for police departments, Mellis explained.

“Maybe East Longmeadow would get $15,000 or $20,000 for training purposes and we could do some advance training,” he added. “Anything helps.”

Mellis said some the changes he’s helped create in the department during his time as chief include the addition of a detective bureau and a school resource officer position.

He also served as president of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association in 2015.

“I had the honor of meeting and having lunch with U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch while she was speaking in Boston,” Mellis noted. “To be invited to discuss police issues and have a seat at the table with her and Boston Police Commissioner [William] Evans and Springfield Police Commissioner [John] Barbieri and other police chiefs in the greater Boston area was a terrific opportunity.”

Mellis said the department has also been working with the school district to help curb drug abuse locally by educating students and parents.

“We have been fortunate to have had the resources of dedicated counselors and school nurses and health professionals and police officers as well as Ms. Marie Graves from the Springfield Public Health Department; a health care advocate,”?he noted. “The East Longmeadow Police Department and these committed professionals are a clear indication that we are willing to work with everyone to try and turn this level of drug abuse around and we should continue our work for resolution to this problem.”

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