Select Board Chair Stu Sklar told his fellow board members at Tuesday’s meeting that the search committee had held two rounds of interviews with candidates for Harvard’s next chief of police. From the six finalists in the second round, the committee had chosen two who were “head and shoulders above the rest of the candidates,” in Sklar’s words.
Sklar did not identify the two finalists during the Select Board meeting, out of concern for confidentiality. But in a later email to the Press, Assistant Town Administrator Marie Sobalvarro wrote that the finalists are Erik Josephson and Ovidiu Babu.
Josephson has been chief of police in Winchester, New Hampshire, since early October. Before that, he was police chief in Egremont, a position from which he retired in 2019. Babu, who is usually called James, is now the acting chief in Harvard, having been a sergeant in the department under former Chief Ed Denmark.
