ALLEGANY — The Village of Allegany has a new full-time police chief, as former Alfred chief Paul Griffith was tabbed to fill the role vacant for the better part of two years.
Over the past couple of years, the role of police chief had been held on a part-time basis by Acting Police Chief David Connor, but village Mayor Gregory Pearl explained that Connor was deemed past the age to take the chief’s test and therefore ineligible to serve in a full-time capacity. The post did, however, eventually need to be filled, and Pearl was put in touch with a potential candidate through a friend.
“Historically, the village doesn’t do well in scramble mode, and Civil Service did give us a little breathing room to find somebody and they haven’t really been yipping yet about not having a Civil Service chief yet, and this came up,” Pearl said.
After being connected to Griffith through a friend, Pearl called him up one evening and had a brief conversation.
“I said, ‘well, when can we get together?'” Pearl explained. “And he said, ‘how about tomorrow morning?’ … He drove in the next day and we talked probably an hour and a half, two hours. And it just proceeded from there.”
From that conversation to Griffith being sworn in as the new chief earlier this month, just a few weeks had elapsed. The choice seemed like a no-brainer to Pearl.
“He’s qualified. We sat, we talked, he was available,” Pearl said. “He’s from a similar background coming from Alfred to Allegany with the college town. We were on the same page as far as a number of things in the village. I felt and feel that it was a good move for the village.”
Griffith said, “We just got talking, and everything seemed like a good fit. I came down and met with the mayor and some of the people. … When I came along, I was just the right fit at the right time, and here I am.”
Griffith, who served 27 years as chief in Alfred, sees many similarities between that village and Allegany, with both being small college towns; and some differences as well. One major difference he notes is that while Alfred in recent years had seen the student population grow to more than 50% of the population; Allegany still has a majority of non-college village residents.
Griffith did not leave the Alfred Police Department willingly as he was placed on leave last August in a dispute with Alfred village officials. The move was made after Griffith had recommended the hiring of a part-time police officer who was a Black military police veteran. Griffith did not address the dispute this week as he continues to settle into his new role.
He has spent the past couple of weeks getting to know his new jurisdiction.
“I’ve worked a couple Saturday nights, I want to get a good grip on what’s going on,” he said, adding, “Having more bars here is helpful, because it breaks up the students so they’re not all in one place. We only had two bars in Alfred, and they (the students) really only went to one, so if there were people who didn’t really like each other, they couldn’t get away from each other.”
“It’s similar enough that I’m already used to it, but it’s also different enough, and different in a good way, that this looks like a good fit and a good place to work.”
Griffith will commute from Allegany County daily, as he prefers not to uproot his wife and five children.
“I’m just happy to have a place to land, and this seems a pretty good place for it.”
