By Matthew K. Roy
Staff writer
December 04, 2008 09:48 am PEABODY — Two veteran police officers were this week promoted to deputy chief, the first step in a major reorganization of the Peabody Police Department, Chief Robert Champagne said. Lt. Martin Cohan and Capt. Scott Carriere, each with more than two decades of experience in Peabody, began their new assignments on Sunday. Cohan will oversee investigations, school policing and any nonuniformed personnel. Carriere will be in charge of the department's uniformed patrol officers. Champagne said the new positions will improve accountability by creating two clearly defined managers with no ties to the police union. "This was a complete union department except for me," Champagne said yesterday. The manager/employee relationship is a more complicated dynamic if both are union members, he said. "The Police Department says, 'You're my boss,' but, as a union member, the rules say, 'You're my brother,'" Champagne said. The chief intends to use three open captain positions, two of which were left vacant by retirements, to implement the second phase of the reorganization. The captains, under new job descriptions, will be responsible for one of three geographic sectors of the city — South Peabody, downtown and West Peabody. Champagne said the department wants to improve its service by directing its resources to address the varying needs in each newly defined sector — the heavily residential West Peabody, the commercial and industrial downtown, and the mix of homes and businesses in South Peabody. "We're trying to find the best and most efficient way to use the resources that we have," Champagne said. Peabody has a land area of 16.5 square miles with a population of approximately 50,000. Its Police Department has 100 uniformed officers. Given the struggling economy and the city's tight budget, Mayor Michael Bonfanti said that funding the two deputy positions was a tough but necessary decision. "Some things you have to do," he said. "Part of our concern is that Peabody is becoming a big city, and you need to have an organizational structure in place that moves the city into (this) century." Champagne said the deputy positions pay a salary of $75,000. The money was included in the $132.5 million city budget the City Council approved last spring. Cohan and Carriere were among six Peabody officers who applied for the positions in accordance with civil service guidelines. Cohan, 52, has been with the department for 24 years. He served as an officer in Hamilton and a state trooper in New Hampshire before arriving here. "I appreciate the confidence their putting in us and we expect to live up to their expectations," Cohan said. Carriere, 47, has a 25-year tenure in Peabody. He said he was proud to lead a fleet of officers he described as "second to none." In January, Carriere will begin three months of leadership training at the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Va. Cohan completed the academy in 2007. The new leadership structure was modeled after what exists in Lowell, Boston and Lynn, Champagne said. He expects the new positions will make more collaboration at the management-level possible and generate more ways to deal with an increasing demand for service. "The worse the economy gets," Champagne said, "the more business we're getting."
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