The nine appointees, who will have the job of reviewing complaints against the Albuquerque Police Department, voting on appropriate discipline for officers, and making policy recommendations, were approved in a unanimous vote on Monday night’s council meeting.
“I am grateful for this recommendation and look forward to the work,” said appointee Joanne Fine, former project director of the Family Advocacy Center. “I think the community really needs this balance, and I look forward to being a part of it.”
It was a historic day for the city, District 1 Councilman Ken Sanchez said, calling it a near perfect board. Sanchez also called on the larger community to remain engaged in the process of healing the city.
The proposal to overhaul the old Police Oversight Commission, which only had the power to make recommendations, was spearheaded by Council President Rey Garduño and Vice President Brad Winter.
The proposal included the names and qualifications of the nine Albuquerque civilians nominated to sit on the board, as well as nine alternate members.
Garduño said that the new commission will have more freedom and power, because it will not be tied to the city government or to City Council. The board will be funded using 0.5 percent of the APD’s total budget, and the board will be free to manage its own money. It will be able to subpoena officers and recommend punishments for any officers it finds in violation of the law, according to City documents.
The chief of police will still have the power to overrule any of the board’s decisions. However, if the chief does, he or she will be required to explain why in official writing.
“Neither the City Council nor the city administration will have any influence, implied or actual, over this board,” Garduño told the Albuquerque Journal. “That’s very important.”
In order to select members for this civilian board, an application review team was created to look through over 120 applications submitted to the council by Albuquerque citizens. The review team had thorough guidelines, and conducted background checks and interviews with many of the applicants before scoring them and finally selecting their recommended members, according to the proposal.
Members of the oversight committee were not allowed to have been employed by law enforcement during the last year, their record had to be free of any pattern of unsubstantiated complaints against APD, and they had to demonstrate a commitment to transparency, according to the proposal.
The nine civilian members come from the world of business, counseling, religion, and government, with a broad collective background.
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“Each of these candidates has passed a background check by the city’s Human Resources Department and, in the assessment of the review team, possesses the skills and qualifications required by the Police Oversight Ordinance to be a member of the Police Oversight Board,” the proposal states. “Collectively, these nine members reflect the ethnic, gender, and geographic diversity of the City.”
Several council members noted that there were a few city districts that were not represented by the nominees, mainly because there were no applicants from some parts of Albuquerque.
Each appointee had different term lengths, ranging from one, two or three years, with different maximum term limits, in an effort to stagger new appointments. This process has been used by the city for other boards in the past, according to the Council.
The civilian Police Oversight Board was one of the many recommendations made by the U.S. Department of Justice in its April 2014 report on the APD, and was part of the settlement reached between the Department of Justice, the City and the APD in October.
Here are the nine new members of the board.
- Dr. Moira Amado-McCoy: President and CEO of All Innovation & Kairos Solutions
- Jeannette Baca: Counselor and Retired Professor of Counseling
- Eric H. Cruz: Acquisition Program Manager at Kirtland Air Force Base
- Joanne Fine: former Project Director, Family Advocacy Center
- Rev. Dr. David Z. Ring III: Retired Pastor, United Methodist Church
- Beth Mohr: Forensic Accountant & investigator, Managing Partner at McHard Accounting Consulting
- Eva P. Sandavol: former corporate Human Resources Director
- Leonard Waites: member, NAACP, previously served on the Police Oversight Task Force
- Jeffrey Scott Wilson: Director of the Victims Assistance Unit, Domestic Violence Resource Center
Jonathan Baca is the news editor at the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @JonGabrielB.
