Coming Soon to Sherborn – A Regional Dispatch Center
There is a big change coming to Sherborn. And hopefully, it’s one you will never notice. This change will mean big
savings for the town, will shorten response times to emergency calls to fire, ambulance or police, provide better police
protection, and will improve the working lives of Sherborn police officers.
The change, recently approved by the Select Board, is to shift handling emergency dispatch from here in the police
station by Sherborn Police officers to a regional dispatch center, which serves a number of towns. The groundwork
for this was laid by Chief Galvin who with Fire Chief Zachary Ward brought it to the Select Board.
A Regional Dispatch Center Continued…
While it may sound like Sherborn will lose a bit of the hometown touch, the improvements will be meaningful, as the
current system has a number of significant problems. It is very expensive to have police officers handling dispatch; it
ties up an officer who could be out patrolling, and it contributes to a problem the town has historically had, retaining
police officers. No one joins the police, particularly in a small town like Sherborn, to sit behind a desk.
Joining an existing dispatch service will solve all those problems. In addition, though it may seem counterintuitive,
it will also improve response time. While the dispatcher will not know Sherborn the way our own officers do, the
dispatcher will be joined on the call by two other dispatchers, one to talk with the police and one to handle the free and
ambulance needs. Instead of one police officer taking in information and then relaying it, information will come in
and be relayed at the same time.
The best part is that it’s free! At least for a while, as grants will cover the first few years of the cost.
Meet Tom Galvin Police Chief
He has a golden doodle named Rudy. There’s a good
deal more to Tom Galvin, Sherborn’s new Police Chief
than that, of course, but it’s a good place start. It’s
good to add that he has a wife with her own career and
two teenage daughters who are serious athletes. And
that he and his family live in a small town. In other
words, Chief Galvin has much in common with the
residents of the town he now serves.
Policing runs in his family. His first boss as a police officer was his father, then the Chief in Wayland, where Tom grew up. His brother, now retired due to an on-the-job injury, was a lieutenant in Northborough. His uncle, also retired, was the Chief in Norwell, and a younger cousin is a beat cop in Boston.
Meet Tom Galvin Police Chief Continued…
Tom began in Wayland and made sergeant there. Not long after that, he attended an 11-week training pro- gram at the FBI Academy in Quantico, VA (he was the fourth youngest of 250 students from 26 different countries). It was this experience that made him feel ready for a bigger role in police work. In 2013, he was hired as the Chief in Berlin, Mass., making a big leap up from sergeant. From there, he came to Sherborn. At first glance, it appears we’re lucky to have him. Kudos to the Search Committee and the Select Board.