The Windsor Police Services Board has a little over 4 months to find a replacement before Chief Al Frederick retires.
Chief Frederick officially announced he will leave the top cop job at the end of January, 2018.
Board Chair Mayor Drew Dilkens is confident there are good candidates for the position internally as well as at other police services.
A recruitment firm will be hired to do the search.
"We will cast the net wide, we will find the best candidates." says Dilkens. "They may exist here internally they may exist somewhere else in the province or in some other province in Canada but we will find the best chief to take over from Al Frederick."
Windsor's chief of police Al Frederick (Photo by AM800's Peter Langille)
Dilkens says Chief Frederick didn't leave the announcement to the last minute.
"He will certainly be missed, but he's been talking to me about succession planning certainly for the last year and what his plans might or might not be. And as we get closer to the dates we had talked about and his plans became clearer and he shared those plans with me."
Dilkens says the police services board has been looking down the road to this moment.
"The board has been working on succession planning for at least the entire time I've been here. We have some great internal candidates to consider and I'm sure there are others across Canada that we should consider as well as we're going to go through and do our due diligence to find the best chief of police to represent the Windsor Police Service."
Dilkens praises Chief Frederick for being easy to work with and the board has enjoyed working with him the last 5 years.