Bureau reports progress on police chief recruitment

By Cecilia Nasmith

Councillor Adam Bureau – who serves as Chair of the Cobourg Police Services Board – reports progress on finding a replacement for Chief Paul VandeGraaf upon his retirement in June.

A list of applicants is being compiled, Bureau said, with 19 having come in.

“We will be going over those and should be having meetings on those as well. Hopefully within a month, month and a half, we should be having a selection process, and the board will be part of that,” he said.

Along with Chief VandeGraaf's departure, Deputy Chief Jeff Haskins in August.

With the police board meeting having taken place the day prior, Bureau said they had just received the annual general report. This will be shared with council next month, though Bureau wanted to highlight one statistic.

“Occurrences called into the police station last year, 2025, was over 18,000. That equals over 50 a day,” he said.

“I just wanted to put that into perspective on how hard the officer work every day, and the staff.”