BY ANGELO LYNN
BRANDON — After 17 years with the Brandon Police Department and and the past 14 years as its police chief, Christopher Brickell officially announced his resignation this past Monday night at the selectboard meeting, effective in mid-December.
“It’s one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make,” Brickell, 62, said in a brief interview Tuesday afternoon. “I’ve worked with a lot of great people in Brandon, great selectboards and terrific town managers. I’ve really enjoyed it here, which is what makes it so hard to leave…. It’s easy to be here for a long time and just stay, but I decided I wanted to look for new opportunities, and a change in my work (before retiring)… It will also give Brandon an opportunity to have fresh eyes look at the community from this position; to provide the town with a new perspective.”
Brickell had served as a police officer for the Manchester (Vt) Police Department for 19 years before taking the job as lieutenant for the Brandon Police Department in 2004. In 2007 he was named Brandon’s Police Chief.
In a letter to the community published in today’s Reporter on page 4, Brandon Selectboard Chair Seth Hopkins wrote that Brickell has served the town well.
“We have continually called upon Chief Brickell to work with members of our community at their worst moments, often in times of crisis, and he has always done so with patience, dignity, and integrity,” Hopkins wrote.
“Chief Brickell has been the model of professionalism as he has led his department through challenges in recruiting, budget funding, and the changing law enforcement climate, extending even to an examination of the fundamental nature of policing in 21st-century America. … His many strengths have been recognized by his peers who elevated him to leadership positions in the Vermont Association of Chiefs of Police. He has always represented Brandon in a way that should make Brandon citizens proud,” Hopkins said.
