MT. PENN, Pa. \u2013 Cake, hugs, and a room full of people with one message: Thank you.<\/p>\n
After more than 40 years in law enforcement, Central Berks Regional Police Chief Ray Serafin is retiring.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started with this department back in 1985 part-time for one year, and then I began full-time in 1986,\u201d Serafin said. \u201cThrough that time, I\u2019ve held a couple positions \u2014 from sergeant to detective and then to chief.\u201d<\/p>\n
Serafin spent his entire career with the same department, serving Mount Penn Borough, Lower Alsace Township, Oley Township, and St. Lawrence Borough.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s unique is really the people that we serve here,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re really a good group of people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Community members from Mount Penn and surrounding towns came together to offer their thanks and goodbyes to Serafin, after his more than four decades in law enforcement.<\/p>\n
Borough Hall filled with applause as local leaders from across Berks County honored a chief many credit with helping modernize regional policing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very community-oriented,\u201d said state Sen. Judy Schwank. \u201cThings like \u2018National Night Out\u2019 \u2014 this police department was among the first to adopt it. He looked at things like regional policing in a bigger, broader way than many others had in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for retirement, Serafin says it will mean more time with family and maybe a little golf.<\/p>\n
\u2028Still, leaving the job won\u2019t be easy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll miss my guys and the people,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s probably the biggest thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Serafin\u2019s last day with the department is in early February.\u2028Deputy Chief Justin Johnson will take over as Central Berks Regional police chief.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MT. PENN, Pa. \u2013 Cake, hugs, and a room full of people with one message: Thank you. After…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98574\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}