The Cobourg Police Board chose its sub-committee as part of the hiring process for the town’s next police chief at its December meeting Tuesday morning.
Three board members – Chair Adam Bureau, Vice-Chair Sean Graham and Member Nicole Beatty – will be on the board’s sub-committee as work is done to replace Paul VandeGraaf, who announced last week he will be retiring in June 2026.
Bureau put forward a motion to formalize the appointments, but Member Ron Kerr noted he would also like to be on the committee. The chair sought confirmation if there was a limit to the amount of members sitting on the committee. Kerr said there is not.
Graham said he supported the motion of three members. The board has just five members, including Dean Pepper who was absent on Tuesday.
“If you’ll recall a little history, when I was chair and we were forming an adhoc or sub-committee in regards to the MOU discussions with the town, as chair I submitted that Member Pepper and myself, since we had worked on that file right from the very get-go, should be the committee,” Kerr said. “Then, the now chair but then (at the time) member or vice-chair Bureau insisted that he sit on the committee and according to our policies he was in his rights to ask for that and he was placed on the committee.”
Bureau didn’t recall insisting on it, but agreed he did ask and then went to a vote on an amended motion to add Kerr to the hiring sub-committee, leading to more discussion.
“If that’s going to be the case then why isn’t the whole board…we’re getting into the habit of having four or five members on committees,” Beatty said.
Graham thought a different and diverse approach was appropriate for this recruitment rather than just having the chair or vice-chair being involved in the past.
“Doing business a little bit differently from time to time’s not a bad thing,” he said.
Kerr responded “it’s fine for the vice-chair to say let’s do something different, we have been doing things differently,” pointing to the board’s finance committee which ended up including the whole board. “I don’t see anything wrong with sticking to our current policies.”
Beatty wondered if the policy only included the chair and the vice-chair.
“I think that was the practice in the past. I don’t think there’s an official policy,” Bureau said.
Graham said in his experience during seven years on the board it’s just been the chair involved in recruitment.
“That’s not correct,” Kerr said. “Since I’ve been on the board, either as chair or vice-chair, it was always the chair and the vice-chair so if we’re looking to do something different, you’re already doing something different. You’re trying to make it a three-person committee so I just want the policies that we have used in the past and which the chair has utilized to be enforced.”
Graham reminded that the committee makes recommendations and then the full board has the opportunity for input into the potential hire or short list of candidates.
“It’s not like the board’s going to be absent in their opportunity to discuss the recruitment,” he said.
Kerr offered one final comment.
“There are two members of the current board that have experience in hiring – Member Pepper and myself. This is a huge task we’re undertaking. I can’t appreciate or understand why you would not utilize that experience.”
The amended motion failed and the motion to approve Bureau, Graham and Beatty as the sub-committee members was approved.
Author: Pete Fisher
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