SEQUIM — City Manager Steve Burkett says he hopes to name the city’s next police chief by Friday.
“By the end of the week, I hopefully will narrow it down to one,” Burkett said Monday.
The city manager for nine months said he wants to make sure the next police chief is not only highly qualified and a competent leader, but is psychologically fit to do the job.
“There is a lot that is the required with due diligence when you are hiring a police chief,” he said, such as passing polygraph tests and being interviewed by a psychiatrist.
As an example, Burkett cited former Tacoma Police Chief David Brame, who in April 2003 shot his wife, then himself in a parking lot at a strip mall while the couple’s two young children were nearby.
Brame died at the scene and his wife, Crystal, died a week later.
They were going through a divorce at the time.
Five finalists for the Sequim police chief position met the public, City Council members and local law enforcement representatives Aug. 5 and were interviewed the next day by Burkett, Police Department and city staff panels.
The panels reported to Burkett on what they saw were the candidates’s strengths and weaknesses.
The candidates for the position are:
• Sheri Crain, acting Sequim police chief.
Lt. Crain has served the department since being initially hired as a patrol officer in February 1991.
• William “Bill” Dickinson, with 39 years of experience in the criminal justice field.
Now an investigator for the state, he is former police chief in SeaTac, Burien and Tigard, Ore.
• Matthew “Matt” Kosec, a Port Townsend native whose family was in the funeral home business until 2000.
He is a police lieutenant in a Dallas-Fort Worth suburb and nationally recognized speaker and consultant on the use of community and government coalitions to address underage drinking.
• Todd Muilenberg, a lieutenant with the Scottsdale, Ariz., Police Department.
He was hired as a patrol officer in 1990 and worked his way up through the ranks.
• Julius “Phil” Schrenck, who has family roots in Sequim, deputy police chief in Sunnyside for almost 10 years.
He has a 21-year career with the Sunnyside Police Department.
Burkett asked former Police Chief Bob Spinks to find another job last March, saying he was no longer the right man for the post Spinks held for five years.
Spinks resigned in June.
The City Council has endorsed Burkett’s proposal to boost the police chief pay 10 percent, bringing the range to $80,000 to $106,000, depending on experience.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
