Boxborough Select Board Hires Permanent Police Chief, Settles Fire Union Deal

BOXBOROUGH — April 10, 2023 — Boxborough Select Board unanimously approved three employment contracts, hired a permanent police chief, and declared a dog a nuisance at its April 10 meeting. The board ratified a new three-year-and-three-month contract for interim Police Chief John Shevchik, who joined the department in November 2022 after roughly 20 years with the Hartford, Connecticut Police Department; a three-year contract with a fourth-year option for DPW Director Ed Kukula; and a retroactive memorandum of agreement with fire union Local 4621 covering fiscal years 2023 through 2025. Town Administrator Mike Guzman said of Shevchik: "He's risen at every occasion to do so with style and professionalism." The board also appointed incoming Treasurer-Collector Naomi Kwanza, currently the tax collector and assistant treasurer for West Brookfield, to begin May 1, and voted to recommend that three private ways in the Boxborough Meadows development — Loring Avenue, Joyce Lane, and McLeod Way — be laid out as public ways at the May 8 annual town meeting. In a dog hearing under MGL Chapter 140, the board declared Luna, a 50-to-60-pound dog owned by Julie Bergeron of 89 Middle Road, a nuisance dog following three incidents including a March 13 attack that left a neighbor's dog requiring six staples and its owner unable to walk the only route to her child's school without fear; Luna must now be muzzled and on a 300-pound-tensile-strength leash when off premises, with a permanent enclosure decision continued to April 24.