Search Group Will Name Choice for Chief of Police

The special committee appointed last February to find a successor to retiring Harvard Police Chief Robert Tonis will present its choice to the Corporation on Monday.

The Security Search Committee will recommend David Gorski, chief of police in Golden Valley, Minn.

Stephen S.J. Hall, vice president for administration, who appointed and chaired the committee, said the appointment would not be official until the Corporation and the Board of Overseers have approved it. Such approval is usually a formality.

Not Informed

Gorski said in Minnesota yesterday he had not been informed of the committee's decision, though he knew that he was one of four possible choices for the job.

He said he would not know whether or not he would accept the position until he had examined the University's offer, including the salary, but that "other things being equal," he probably would.

The University Police is two-and-a-half times as large as the Golden Valley force, and has nearly double its budget.

Gorski, who is in his mid-thirties, worked on the Minneapolis police force before becoming chief of police in Golden Valley, a small, upper-middle-class white suburb of Minneapolis.

The Security Search Committee screened over 250 applications and interviewed more than a dozen candidates before deciding on Gorski.

Hall said the amount of research the committee had done on Gorski was "unbelievable."

Tonis, who will be 66 in February, will retire next June. He said that he had met Gorski only briefly, and had not been consulted by the committee.

"It appears that he's an excellent choice. The committee took this very seriously, and whoever they chose is all right with me," Tonis said