Rangeley Police Chief Richard Caton IV.  Stephanie Dellavalle

RANGELEY — After four months of acting as interim police chief at the beginning of spring, officially accepting the role in the beginning of August, and then within the last several weeks fully staffing his department, Rangeley Police Chief Richard Caton IV is confidently settling into his new role.

“Yeah, there’s definitely a lot of things going on,” said Caton on the busy morning he was spoken with.

Up until just a couple of weeks ago, he has had to carry the responsibilities of his department on his own. Just this past month three officers were hired in succession on Sept. 6, 9 and 10. He is relieved that the town will now have full coverage.

“I think there have been some isolated incidents, but I also think that it’s the lack of officer presence in the community over the last several months that kind of contributed to some of this stuff,” Caton said. “And I’m hoping as soon as we get back to having an officer in town seven days a week, that there’s going to be more presence, that’s going to start deterring that type of activity.”

It has been a whirlwind of changes these past several months, and not one that Caton predicted.

When he took on the role as Rangeley’s interim police chief, Caton thought it would be temporary.

“I really didn’t have any thoughts of applying full time,” he said. “It was more just trying to help the community out, bringing my experience and knowledge up here to try to get the administrative items into place for them to be able to look for a new chief when that time came.”

In less than a month he started considering applying to take on the role permanently.

“Just being up here and meeting the community and seeing and hearing the vision of where the town wanted to go just drew me into thinking that I would like to be a part of that,” said Caton. After a pause adding, “and obviously the beauty of the Rangeley Lakes region is not a bad office space for a police officer either.”

Caton started his career in the town of Jay in 2003 and worked for several years there as a patrol officer.

However, in 2007 he went to work in Wilton where they experienced a similar situation to the one Rangeley just went through.

“They lost their police department. The new chief came in and started rebuilding and employing the whole department and I ended up going there for two years working my way from a patrol officer to a supervisor there before returning back to Jay,” Caton said.

He said he had to rebuild the Rangeley the same way, when the department didn’t have any officers, “and now I’ve been able to hire three patrol officers and have a full department.”

Even before he was officially accepted as full time chief, Caton put out advertisements for patrol officers.

“Once I was selected chief, at that point was when I did some interviews and ended up having six great applicants and I hired three officers out of that,” he said.

All three are certified law enforcement officers from Franklin and Oxford counties, with experience ranging from 3 to 25 years.

Caton has already worked with two of the three officers and is very happy with the new team he has put together.

“It was a good transition, and I’ve got experience working with them. So, I know how they work, and I believe all three are going to make a great team for this community.”

Caton will now be able to move forward that much easier.

“It’s been a great experience, so far. It’s been tough working the month by myself, trying to keep things going and handling complaints while I’ve been here in town, but now that they’re hired, I’m hoping to be back to covering seven days a week, 24 hours a day by October,” he said.

He is looking forward to getting to know the community.

“I think Rangeley is a great community for community policing. It’s a small, tight-knit community with a lot of tourism that comes in at different times that I think that the community policing aspect is going to be huge in Rangeley,” the chief said. “My vision, once we get up and going, is to have some more of that presence in the school and even out in the community. You know, walking the streets of Rangeley and meeting business owners and getting out there and being more approachable to the community. I think being a police officer is more than just being in a cruiser. It’s getting out and meeting people and I think that will go a long way here in this community.”

Caton and his wife, Sarah, live in Wilton, and they have three boys. Although he has not been through a Rangeley winter, he has enjoyed the commute so far.

“What I found even while I was doing the interim stuff, is there’s time to decompress from everything that’s going on in the work environment. Before, my travel from Wilton to Jay was less than 10 minutes. So, by the time I would get home, I wouldn’t have that time to decompress and think through everything that went on and sometimes would still be thinking about it when I got home. But here this travel, by 30 minutes into the drive I can sometimes turn the radio on, and things are great. So, I definitely am enjoying the travel so far.”

Besides enjoying the commute, Caton is enjoying his new role.

“I’m extremely excited to be here and more excited that the department is coming together and hopefully providing the services that this community needs,” said Caton.