DRACUT — In a nook of Gail Paquin’s home is a small shrine in honor of her late father, Robert W. Paquin.
The memorial to her father, who served as an officer and later captain for the Dracut Police Department for nearly four decades, includes his police cap with a shiny ‘CAPTAIN’ badge, a yellowed Sun clipping centered on him, and a photo collage of him in uniform. In one, Paquin is holding a very young Gail.
And then there’s the shoulder patch the late Paquin designed in 1973 for the department — one still worn by Dracut officers.
Paquin, 52, recently found out the patch — which features the U.S. flag and the Massachusetts state seal — will soon be switched out for a new one featuring the Dracut town seal. It’s a decision Chief Peter Bartlett has made that coincides with an overarching move toward greater uniformity within the Dracut Police Department. One recent change has been new decals on the police cruisers.
Paquin is not pleased.
“This is his legacy. This is a man that served the town for 37 years, and someone that comes in here for less than a year wants to change that?” Paquin said late Tuesday morning as she held up the patch bordered with yellow stitching. “This isn’t for me. This is for my father. He put a lot into this town.”
Efforts by a Dracut selectman to hold a retirement ceremony for the old patch seemed to have fallen on deaf ears.
Bartlett, whose hiring last year as the new police chief in Dracut followed what has been an era fraught with turmoil within the agency, insists the change has nothing to do with discrediting the late Paquin and his legacy.
“The Dracut patch that her father created in 1973 will always be a piece of this agency. It’s part of the historical aspects of the Dracut Police Department,” Bartlett said Tuesday afternoon from police headquarters. “Prior to 1973, there were different types of cruisers and different types of uniforms and her father was able to make the changes he wanted to make, and I’m looking at moving into the future. That’s all this is about.”
It cost just over $2,000 for a total of 1,500 new, navy blue patches. The patches are expected to be officially rolled out in April. (Bartlett declined to have the patch displayed publicly at this time.) Each officer will receive between 16 and 18 patches, according to Bartlett.
“Being incorporated in 1701 is an awesome thing. It’s an awesome historical thing and we have nothing on our uniform or our cruisers that identifies any piece of the town’s seal,” Chief Bartlett explained. “So in order to do that, I opted to change the patch and do a design that incorporates the town seal because I really think it’s important to be inclusive in the community, and have that representative on the town patch.”
Paquin said she was saddened about the upcoming change and took issue with the removal of the U.S. flag from the patch, but Bartlett said it will still be represented on the uniform by way of a pin that will be placed high on the right side of officers’ chests.
“The flag pin will remain in its position higher than any other pin that’s worn on this side of the uniform,” he said.
And the Massachusetts state flag, he added, is featured on the seal of officers’ badges.
“It’s important for the department to have uniformity and the chief has taken appropriate steps to address that with the uniform policy, with the graphics on the vehicles, with the patches,” Town Manager Jim Duggan said. “The patch is going to address the town’s seal, which is extremely important. In every community I’ve been associated with, that municipality seal is on the patch of the police officer that they’re serving. … I think he’s taken the right steps in doing that.”
Selectman Tony Archinski, a former police officer who used to work for and with the late Paquin, said it’s a difficult balance between standing in the way of progress and being sensitive to the past. He said he suggested to Gail Paquin that they hold a retirement ceremony for the patch but that she was not interested.
“It’s a tough situation,” said Archinski, adding that he hasn’t seen the new patch design.
Paquin and Bartlett both said their positions are not personal.
“In five or 10 years, if I’m not here — however long I’m here — if a new chief comes in and wants to institute a new patch, or new branding, or a new car, or new graphics, or new uniforms, then that’s not a slam on my legacy as being a chief here,” Bartlett said. “The things that I’ve implemented will become a historical piece of this agency and it will be that way just like her father’s is.”
Paquin said she is just trying to protect her father’s legacy. On Wednesday, she admitted she may be a day late and a dollar short.
“It’s like if the town manager came in and changed the town seal,” she said. “He (Chief Bartlett) talks about town history. That patch is town history.”
Follow Amaris Castillo on Twitter @AmarisCastillo.
