“Proud Day for Wilton”: Town Officials Celebrate Police HQ Beam Topping Ceremony [PHOTOS]

Wilton officials celebrated a significant milestone for the new Police Headquarters project on Tuesday morning, Oct. 1, with the construction tradition of a “beam topping” ceremony. The rite is often performed when the last beam of a main structure is set in place.

Tuesday morning’s sun shined bright on members of the Wilton Police Department as well as a few dozen guests who gathered between the back of Town Hall and the construction site to take part: Town leaders, Town employees and first responders, project architects and engineers, the construction team, Police-Town Hall Building Committee members, current and past police commissioners, Board of Selectmen members, and others. (Two other former Wilton officials who were instrumental in making a new HQ a reality — former Police Chief John Lynch and former First Selectwoman Lynne Vanderslice — were unable to make it but were thanked in several of the officials’ remarks during the ceremony.)

The mood was jovial as people signed their names on the beam, and watched as it was hoisted by crane to the top of the metal-framed future police station. But many of the officials who spoke and were present were reminded that the road to get to this point was a long one.

There were several years of stops and starts, appeals by police and town officials, and board meeting discussions. In 2017, GOOD Morning Wilton took a video tour with Lynch and then-Capt. Rob Cipolla (now Deputy Chief) to see first-hand what the issues were, including a too-small building that outlived its service and didn’t keep pace with modern policing. Wilton voters finally approved bonding for a new police headquarters in May of 2022 and the town broke ground in October 2023.

Building committee Co-Chair Patti Temple got a bit choked up watching the beam settle in. “It’s a long time coming — 20 years in the making, I’m more than honored to have been a small part of it. All of our town employees deserve a good working environment, and I’m just thrilled to have been a part of it. It’s a proud day for Wilton.”

Temple’s co-chair, David Waters, agreed. “It’s incredibly satisfying because I know what the conditions were before and what they’re still living through until this gets done. And there was a lot of effort that was put in by a lot of people, and it’s just so satisfying to see it happening,” he said.

First Selectman Toni Boucher said the new HQ was a tribute to Wilton residents’ contributions. “This is a long time coming, and we are all so incredibly happy that this is happening both for not just our police department and first responders, but for the Town of Wilton. It’s everyone coming together, from the boards and building committees to the voters, and they get the most thanks, because the voters saw the need and they responded.”

Police Chief Thomas Conlan was just as grateful to the residents of Wilton for approving the project, and said his officers “couldn’t be more proud and happy to be working here in Wilton for these people.”

What the new building will bring for the Police Department is multilayered.

“Our officers are very excited about the new building going up. And in this day and age, with recruitment for the town, for police officers in general, at an all-time low, we have to market ourselves so much more to prospective employees. And a building like this is definitely something that will be on people’s radar, and it’ll show new hires and current people that work for us, how much the town appreciates us and what we do,” Conlan said. “So a huge thanks to everybody.”

Town Engineer/Department of Public Works Director Frank Smeriglio also has been heavily involved with the project for years, and in addition to thanking voters, he had another unsuspecting group of people to thank for making the building possible — all of the unsung DPW workers.

“This [police HQ] is really a high-profile job, and there’s always a bunch of other high-profile issues in town. But the reason why we’re able to work on those issues is because there’s everyone else in [the department] that deals with all the all the day-to-day things that come up,” he said. “It’s important that they know, for me and for the town, they may not be in the meetings, but they’ve done just as much to make this happen. We’re able to work on that,” he said, gesturing to the new building’s construction site, “because they’re working on the other ones.”