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Duke high-tails it to Richmond Williston loses police comfort dog with officer’s departure BY JASON STARR Observer staff
Duke, a Labrador retriever and Vermont’s first police comfort dog, was transferred from Williston to the Richmond Police Department in June when his handler, Officer Matt Cohen, took a new job in Richmond. OBSERVER FILE PHOTO
Williston lost more than just an officer when Matt Cohen resigned from the police department in June. Along with him went beloved labrador retriever Duke, the first police comfort dog in Vermont. Duke came to town as a puppy in 2020 and trained with Cohen to become part of the police force. For four years, he offered comfort to crime victims, witnesses and first-responders in emergency situations and was a key part of the department’s community outreach efforts, appearing at schools and special events. Last month, Cohen accepted a job at the Richmond Police Department, advancing to the rank of corporal and bringing Duke to the neighboring town. “We hate to see them both go,” Williston Town Manager Erik
Wells said. “It has really been a great success in community policing and relations.” Richmond Town Manager Josh Arneson said he found out about Duke during Cohen’s job interview; the town was not looking to start a police comfort dog program. The Richmond Selectboard agreed to seize the opportunity
Newborn Duke was donated to the Town of Williston in 2020 by Boonefield Labradors in New Hampshire as a comfort dog for the Williston Police Department.
and create the program during a June 3 meeting, taking ownership of Duke in the process. The next night, Williston’s selectboard met and voted to grant $2,000 to Richmond to jumpstart its program, leaving about $8,000 in Williston’s comfort dog fund — raised primarily through donations over the past four years — that the police department plans to use for continued community outreach. But reinstating a comfort dog program is not in Williston’s immediate future, according to Police Chief Patrick Foley. With the departure of Cohen, the police department has four officer vacancies and is attempting to stand up a detective unit and bring on a social worker. “Being four positions down, it’s hard to justify it,” Foley said. “We have a lot of growth that is planned here over the years, and that will be a program we will look to re-institute once we get back up to full strength.” Meanwhile, Cohen has become the only police officer in
OBSERVER FILE PHOTO
see DUKE page 3
Selectboard considers final ARPA grants
Board has $1.4 million in federal funds to spend locally
BY INDIRA BUSH AND JASON STARR Williston has about $1.4 million dollars left to spend from the original $3 million given in federal spending money from the American Rescue Plan Act — a 2021 pandemic recovery law known as ARPA. This summer, the Williston Selectboard is whittling a wide-ranging list of potential
infrastructure upgrades, studies, repairs and maintenance to determine the best use of the funds. The U.S. Treasury gave small towns like Williston wide leeway on how to spend the funds, but it did set a deadline of 2026 to spend them. Through an accounting move earlier this year, where the funds were transferred to a “Community Projects Fund,” the board has freed itself from any deadline to spend the money. During a meeting Tuesday, board members agreed to take what is now a list of roughly 60 potential projects — some suggested by town administrators, others by citizens — and shorten it to 10 priorities.
Each board member plans to present their list of 10 at the board’s July 16 meeting. “We’ve had this money for quite a while, and I would like us to allocate it sooner rather than later,” selectboard member Greta D’Agostino said. Some of the bigger-ticket items on the list include a fire suppression system at the Old Brick Church, which voters rejected taking on debt for during Town Meeting Day in March; design work for a library addition on the Town Green; a feasibility and location study for a community-recreation center; Town Hall parking lot improvements, including drainage, electric vehicle
charging stations, additional parking spaces and improved lighting (this project was also rejected by voters at Town Meeting); various water, sewer and stormwater projects; a radio communications tower on Old Creamery Road for emergency response; and repairing the Allen Brook bridge at Village Community Park damaged in December flooding (the bridge remains closed). Projects recommended by community members include donations to the Williston Community Food Shelf; support for upgrades at Allen Brook Memory Care; property tax relief; and pickleball courts, among others.
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