Delta's new police chief says taking over the helm of a department like this only comes around once in an officer's career.
"It seemed to be the perfect fit," Neil Dubord said this week.
Mayor Lois Jackson, who also chairs the Delta police board, announced last week that after an intensive search Dubord had been chosen to take over as Delta's top cop.
Dubord, who has been chief of the Metro Vancouver Transit Police for the last three years, spent the previous 25 years with the Edmonton Police Department.
He said he never worked with retired Delta police chief Jim Cessford, who spent more than two decades with the Edmonton police before coming to Delta.
"He was a generation above me," Dubord said of Cessford, who retired in February after 20 years at the helm of the local department.
While his tenure with the Metro Vancouver Transit Police was relatively brief and, he said, the department has made a lot of progress over the last three years, Dubord said
he decided to put his name forward because it was a once in a career opportunity.
He said the department's values and community policing model represent why he got into policing in the first place.
In Edmonton, Dubord served as deputy chief of the department's Community Policing Bureau and took leadership roles in a wide variety of initiatives, including neighbourhood empowerment through community action teams.
In announcing the new chief last week, Jackson said the board was looking for a candidate who "is a strong leader with a proven track record in policing, a critical thinker and more importantly a person who believes in community policing and our 'no call too small' mandate.
"Mr. Dubord has all those qualities and a solid career behind him."
Noting he will take over the department at the end of June, Dubord said he has already started the process of making contacts in the community.
He said Deltans will find that he is a chief who is highly accessible and available to the community. "Expect to see me in the community," he said.
