UNLV police chief finalists set

Jace Radke

Tuesday, April 25, 2000 | 10:45 a.m.

The names of three finalists for the post of UNLV public safety director are expected to be handed over to President Carol Harter by Wednesday.

Interviews of five candidates for the job, which includes the duties of UNLV police chief, were held last week, and the search has now been narrowed to three.

Search committee chairwoman Harriet Barlow said she would not reveal the names of the three finalists until after they were given to Harter.

Raymond Sparks, retired deputy director of the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles, is the only in-state candidate for the job leading the 22-officer department that was founded in 1972.

The other four finalists all have backgrounds with university or college police departments or community policing. They are Dexter Yarbrough, a community policing liaison in the Chicago Police Department; Ronald Seacrist, director of public safety at California State University, Northridge; Jose Elique, director of public safety at the City University of New York; and Stephen Baker, a Mesa, Ariz., police commander responsible for an Arizona State University satellite campus and Mesa Community College campus.

"We felt all of the candidates were qualified, but the three finalists were extremely qualified," search committee member Bobby Siller said Monday at a meeting of the UNLV public safety advisory committee. "The particular skills of each of the finalists will be highlighted in the report we give to the president."

Ed Verkin, who ran the Las Vegas office of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms from 1990 to 1998, is serving as acting chief at the department until a new one is appointed.