GOULDSBORO – Local officials have decided to go ahead with a plan to reorganize the municipal police department and have hired two new officers as part of that plan.

Glenn Grant, a former local part-time officer, began working full time for the Gouldsboro Police Department on Monday, according to Town Manager Eve Wilkinson. He joins Officer James Malloy as the town’s two full-time officers. Jamie Denbow has been hired to work as a part-time officer, she said.

Grant and Malloy will share patrol and administrative duties. The town has decided to do away with the position of chief and to give the two full-time officers a share of departmental paperwork to ensure that they also spend part of their time on duty doing routine patrols.

“I think that’s where we’re going to stay for a while,” Wilkinson said Monday. “We’re hoping that will work.”

The hirings come in the wake of two abrupt departures from the department this summer. One came from the firing of former Chief Guy Wycoff, who was terminated by the local board of selectmen in July. Wycoff had objected to the board’s interest in eliminating the chief position and had been suspended for insubordination in the weeks before his firing.

James Cathcart, who had been working as a part-time officer and as the town’s shellfish warden, subsequently quit to protest Wycoff’s firing. Malloy has been working as the town’s shellfish warden since Cathcart’s departure, Wilkinson said.

The board had voted to fire Wycoff in July 2002, but after the chief hired an attorney and contested that firing, the board reversed its decision and reinstated Wycoff a few days later.

Attempts to contact Wycoff since his firing in July have been unsuccessful.

Wilkinson said Monday she has received no direct indication, either verbally or in writing, that Wycoff is contesting the circumstances of his latest termination by the town.

btrotter@bangordailynews.net

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