Selex Say Nemeth’s Out And Hull’s in at RPD

Selex Say Nemeth’s Out And Hull’s in at RPD By Randy Leavitt

As a result of a trio of meetings held last week by the Royalton Selectboard, Mark Nemeth is no longer an officer for the Royalton Police Dept., and Bob Hull is now the police chief.

At last Tuesday’s regularly scheduled meeting, Nemeth was reinstated as an officer on the Royalton Police Dept., following his resignation two weeks earlier.

However, the two meetings on Thursday changed that. The first one began at 9 a.m., as the board conducted an executive session for three hours and, presumably, discussed the recent problems between its two Royalton Police Department officers, Chief Robert Hull and Sgt. Marc Nemeth.

The third meeting of the week, and the second of that day, was held at 7:30 p.m. in the town offices. It was at that evening meeting that the selectboard’s decisions about policing Royalton were made.

Shortly after that meeting came to order, selectboard member Denis Ives read a letter from Chief Bob Hull in which Hull announced his resignation from both the Royalton Constabulary and the Royalton Police Department. A motion was made to accept his resignation and, with no discussion, the motion was passed unanimously.

Next, Ives made a motion to disband the Royalton Police Department that had been established last September 25. That motion also passed unanimously with no discussion. 

Then, a motion was made to establish a new Royalton Police Department—this one to be a one-man department, and the one man to be Bob Hull.

This motion was also passed unanimously. Royalton was without a police department for less than 10 minutes.

The board also voted to ensure that its police officer need not be a town constable (as was the rule with the old department), but, that there should be nothing to prevent a police officer from being a constable should that officer run for the position.

Finally, the board voted to move the entire town constable’s budget to the newly-formed one-man police department.

This new department leaves former Royalton police officer Marc Nemeth without a job. He remains Royalton’s first constable, but that position now has no funding. He is currently the only constable in Royalton until the selectboard advertises and then appoints a new constable to replace Bob Hull.

Two weeks ago, Nemeth resigned from the department after frustration with Chief Hull. The two men argued extensively at the last two selectboard meetings about personnel policies and the overall direction of the one-year-old police force.

Hull and Nemeth, it appears, disagreed on many things. The selectboard, after this long week of meetings, seems to have decided that the differences were irreconcilable, and that they sided with Hull.

Bob Hull is the Royalton police chief. The phone number of the Royalton Police Department has been changed to 763-7776. The location of the Police Department is now the Royalton town office. 

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