ADAMS, Mass. — The Board of Selectmen will interview two candidates for police chief on Wednesday, including one from Berkshire County. 

 

The public interviews will take place over the Zoom platform beginning at 5 p.m. with Erik Josephson and 6:30 with F. Scott Kelley.

 

The town has been searching for a permanent police chief since the retirement of Richard Tarsa last year. In early summer, the board opted to go with an interim chief for six months and choose Troy Bacon of Indiana. Officials had hoped that Bacon would apply for the permanent position but he told the board he would be returning to Indiana. 

 

Josephson is a retired police chief. He was one of the five candidates interviewed for the interim position back in June. He has 33 years of policing experience in Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. His most recent post was with Egremont but he left after a year because of conflicts with the Select Board, which he explained to the Adams Selectmen in June. During that interview, he spoke about community policing, internal best practices, and regional collaboration. 

 

Kelley is the public safety director/chief of police at Spartanburg (Ga.) Community College. According to his Linkedin page he holds a bachelor of science with a concentration in criminal justice/law enforcement administration from Columbia Southern University in Alabama. He has worked in both academic and community policing, and was named chief at Spartanburg three years ago. 

 

The two finalists were culled from 37 initial applications from as far away as Arizona. The screening committee, which had included Town Administrator Jay Green and interim Police Chief Troy Bacon, had whittled that down to 11 for preliminary interviews, although two withdrew at that time. That number was reduced to four who were to be interviewed over Tuesday and Wednesday this week. 

 

"We were able to get it down at this point to four, that may reduce further, those four may may decline, but that is where we are tonight," Green told the Selectmen last week. 

 

That came partly true when two of the candidates indicated that they did not wish to be considered. A Selectmen's meeting set for Tuesday night for two interviews was canceled.