With Two New Officers, Wyckoff Completes Police Retiree Replacements

Wyckoff completed the re-staffing of its police force Tuesday night with the approval of two new officers to fill the remaining vacancies left by three retiring from the department this year.

The township appointed Ryan Noon to the department in June, the first officer hired to fill vacancies left by the retired Sgt. Robert McKay and Officer Andy Poremba, as well as Sgt. Dale Winters, who will end his police career later this year.

Michael Teegan and James Bakelaar will round out the township’s efforts to replace the departing veterans, and both were sworn in at a meeting Tuesday night.

Teegan is a Glen Rock resident who has been with the department as a dispatcher since 2010, before which he worked for Northwest Bergen Central Dispatch. A 2005 graduate of Binghampton University, where he studied philosophy, politics and law, he brings medical skills to the department as a certified EMT and member of the Glen Rock Ambulance Corps.

He begins at the Bergen County Police Academy next week, where he will train for six months, Police Chief Benjamin Fox said.

Bakelaar, whose father is a lieutenant with the Franklin Lakes Police Department, is a lifelong resident of Midland Park and a 2012 graduate of William Paterson University, where he earned a BA in criminal justice. A volunteer coach in his spare time, the new recruit enrolled himself in the Passaic County Police Academy, from which he will graduate next week.

“I think we have two incredibly talented individuals that are going to serve this community for many, many years to come,” Fox said.