en with the Girard Police Department for the past 16 years, has been named the city’s new police chief.

Mayor Mark Zuppo made the announcement at Monday’s city council meeting.

“Captain Freeman will now be called Chief Freeman,” Zuppo said, followed by applause from city officials, council members and residents at the meeting.

Zuppo said Freeman will be officially sworn in at a future meeting after new sergeants and captains have been named so all of them can be sworn in together. Zuppo said he looks forward to continuing to work with Freeman on various issues, including addressing problems with ATVs being driven on public property late at night and having more community policing

Freeman started with the department in 2009.

He has served as police captain since 2021 and before that was senior sergeant.

Freeman oversees a department of 15 full-time police officers, two part-time officers, four full-time dispatchers, one part-time dispatcher and an administration clerk.

Freeman has 18 years of experience and worked two years for the Weathersfield Police Department before coming to Girard, Freeman is also certified as a cybercrime investigator and examiner.

Zuppo said at the meeting that Freeman and fire Chief Jim Petruzzi were both Girard Class of 2003 graduates and knew one another in high school. They also worked together at the McDonald Fire Department as firefighters / EMTs.

Freeman said the police and fire departments will be collaborating more on different projects. Zuppo said Freeman was selected as chief based on the civil service exam and his experience in law enforcement.

He said he has already spoken with Freeman about golf carts and e-bikes on the roads, as well as ATVs being driven on public property, sometimes as late as 11 p.m. or midnight.

Zuppo said he has spoken to officials in Salem and other communities on ordinances they have in place to address golf carts, ATVs and other vehicles.

“We have an ATV problem in the city. We get a lot of calls and complaints from residents,” he said.

Freeman said he has done research on the operation of such recreational vehicles in other municipalities.

FUTURE DEVELOPMENT

In other business, council gave final reading for granting developer / Realtor Jason Altobelli, owner of Altobelli Real Estate, to make service payments in lieu of property taxes and establishing a municipal public improvements tax increment equivalent fund.

Altobelli, who has attended previous council meetings, has said he plans to convert a 21-acre property in northern Girard into a housing development to be known as Maplewood Estates.

Altobelli had applied for the city’s Tax Increment Financing Funds (TIFF) program. Under the TIFF program, property tax on the development will be assessed over a period of time, and a portion of the revenue from that tax will go back into the TIFF fund, with Altobelli to get reimbursed for the cost of the infrastructure.

Altobelli said the new housing development will include sidewalks.

City officials have said the Maplewood Estates development will be located at the corner of Oak Street and Hickory Trace Drive, and will be the first new housing development in Girard in more than 20 years.