Police Chief Chris Romance Settles In
A conversation with our new chief, a veteran New York policeman who's excited to be in Hinesburg; he fills a position that has been vacant for over a year.
By Geoffrey Gevalt
The Record Managing Editor
What strikes you first about Chris Romance is his demeanor: straight-forward, even-keeled, unassuming, quick to smile, quick to laugh. He welcomes you, seems glad to see you. He mutes the ringers on both his cell phones as he sits down, looks you in the eye and thinks about what he says.
If he wasn’t wearing a uniform you might think he was a bureaucrat, an accountant maybe. But then you hear the directness of his message, the confidence of his philosophy and vision – his deep commitment to public safety, good policing and community.
Then you know Chris Romance is all about community policing. Which is why Town Manager Todd Odit said he hired him.
Romance served for 29 years in the Rockville Centre (N.Y.) police department, starting as a patrolman in 1997 and retiring last month as the highest-ranking uniformed officer serving the community of nearly 26,000 people in Nassau County on Long Island. As the department’s Inspector, he ran day-to-day operations overseeing 56 officers. He also led the town’s emergency management team.
According to Rockville Centre’s Police Commissioner Arthur “Randy" Dodd, Romance earned numerous commendations as a patrol officer, including ‘Cop of the Year.’ He later served in the traffic enforcement unit, became the department’s primary training instructor and later became commander of both units.
Romance himself received considerable training throughout his years and is a graduate of the FBI National Academy.
“Chris set a standard for professionalism that will guide this department for years to come,” Dodd said. “He had a great rapport with the team. He was well-liked and respected by the officers under him.”
When Romance talks about his work in Rockville Centre, he starts with his work training officers and the steps he took to protect their well-being. He’s clearly not the type to share war stories about making an arrest or solving a crime or even the mayhem of some emergency situation. He’d rather talk about the community and the importance of engaging with residents, understanding what they need and protecting the schools.
By his second day in Hinesburg – Feb. 18 – he had already met with the principals of CVU and Hinesburg Community School. He will soon hold community meetings to “to learn more about what concerns people have.”
“I want to engage with people in this community,” he told The Record. “I will be going out on the calls with the officers. I want them to get to know me. And I want to work closely with the schools.” He has already joined the schools’ emergency management teams.
He said he’s already gotten a taste of the community. “People have been knocking on the door just to welcome me,” he said, “out of the blue.” No invitation needed. One day the Girl Scouts came by, he said, smiling and pointing to five boxes of cookies – “my favorites” – stacked on a shelf.
Romance knows that connecting with the community is important for reasons beyond straight policing. Hinesburg has only had a police chief for 30 years and controversy has surrounded several of those chiefs. The first was fired after 16 years, another didn’t last long and Romance’s predecessor resigned under a cloud a year ago January, a sourness that seemed to have begun in 2022 when Hinesburg voters turned down the original police budget.
A hard choice
Settling in to the conversation, Romance talked about the difficulties of leaving a community and a police force where “I have so many friends.” He has only worked for one police department, in a suburban, well-to-do “village” four times larger than Hinesburg covering a little under four square miles. Hinesburg, he noted, has fewer people but a lot more miles to cover. Which is why he is driving around the roads, looking at the town man, to get to know where everything is and how to get there.
Asked about his most satisfying accomplishments in Rockville Centre, he immediately pointed to his department’s close relationships with the seven schools and a university; he said each day an officer would drop by, get out of their cruisers and talk with students and teachers and staff so they could get to know the officers as people, to connect in non-emergency, non-confrontational situations. The department also started programs with kids to have them learn about policing to even “consider it as a profession.”
He plans to do this in Hinesburg and his emphasis on schools also caught Odit’s attention. “We have the largest high school in the state and the smallest police department in the county,” Odit noted.
Romance also said he was proud of the work he did to secure grants for equipment that helped police do their jobs and free up their time to work with the community. Expect the same, he said, here in Hinesburg.
Learning Vermont law and Hinesburg’s procedures
His first order of business, he said, will be to get certified by the state of Vermont. That will involve his going to the Vermont State Police Academy to learn about state laws and police procedures in order to obtain that certification. As part of that effort, he will be reviewing all of the Hinesburg department’s policies and procedures to ensure they are up-to-date and following best practices.
His second order of business will be to fill the existing police opening and hire an additional officer in January now that voters have approved the FY2027 budget. He knows that will be a challenge.
“There’s a shortage of law enforcement officers right now in the state of Vermont in many different police departments,” he said. “Officers tend to move from one department to another in Vermont. That doesn’t happen in New York.”
He explained. Under New York civil service laws, he said, officers must take a proficiency exam to get hired. If a department has an opening, the civil service department provides a list of the top exam performers. Departments must start at the top to fill their opening. If an officer wants to move to another community, he said, they have to take the exam again and go through the same hiring procedure, so even if they want to move, they might not be able to be hired by the other department. So there aren’t really many lateral transfers in New York.
“It doesn’t work that way in Vermont,” he said, noting that officers are free to move from one town to another and do so. Hinesburg certainly has experienced this turnover even in the last year when they went down to two officers. Romance understands that part of recruitment will be strategies for retention.
Adding to the recruiting dilemma, he said, is the cost of housing and Romance’s desire to have the officers live in or as close as possible to Hinesburg so they integrate better with the community.
Hinesburg has some advantages, he said, including the better pay scale that was recently agreed upon by the town and the Police Benevolent Association. Further, he said, is the welcoming spirit of Hinesburg and its supportive governmental leadership.
With the additional officers, Romance said, the department can get back to covering the community for more hours in the week. With the first hire, he plans to cover the community from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily (it has been 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.) and some coverage on weekends (currently all of the weekends are “covered” by Vermont State Police). With the second officer, he anticipates almost complete coverage.
Why Vermont? Hinesburg?
Romance said he and his wife, Abigail, love Vermont. They enjoy the outdoors – hiking, skiing, kayaking. He and his wife bought a timeshare at Smuggler’s Notch 20 years ago and committed to someday “retiring” to Vermont. His idea of retiring, it seems, is to get another full-time job.
Abigail Romance works remotely supervising the procurement and accounts payable department at a New York City nonprofit (and will continue to do so in Vermont). She is staying back until their youngest son graduates this spring from high school. They have three other children, one of whom is going to be starting Vermont Law School this fall. Romance said that he has signed a contract on a home in Huntington.
As to why he picked Hinesburg, he did his homework: He watched some of the videos of selectboard meetings; he read stories about the community. “I was able to see that there was a lot of community support for public safety,” he said, “both in the police department and fire department.”
On Tuesday, when voters approved the expanded FY2027 police and fire budgets, his observations were confirmed.