Fort Worth residents will have a chance to meet finalists for the city’s police oversight monitor director position May 31, after a monthslong search and recruitment process.
The city received 114 applications for the position, Dianna Giordano, human resources director, said during a May 16 presentation to the City Council. Of those applicants, six have been selected as semi-finalists. They will be interviewed May 19 by a panel, and finalists will be chosen from there.
The finalists will have a packed day on May 31. First, they’ll have meet-and-greets with current oversight monitor staff, city council members and city management. Later in the evening, they’ll attend a dinner hosted by Greater Friendship Missionary Baptist Church and North Texas Community Foundation. Dinner attendees will include Fort Worth Police executive leadership, members of the City Manager’s Office and the Coalition of Unity & Justice Members.
Finally, the general public will have a chance to meet the finalists from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. May 31 at Como Community Center. A moderator will ask finalists questions submitted by the public, and the forum will also be broadcast live on cable, FWTV, Facebook and YouTube. Biographies and pictures of the candidates will be provided at the event, and people can submit comment cards with their feedback about the candidates.
The city of Fort Worth has been without a permanent police oversight director since November, when former director Kim Neal left to set up another police oversight office in Virginia. Neal was the inaugural director of the Office of Police Oversight Monitor in Fort Worth. The director is tasked with evaluating police processes and systems, receiving and processing resident complaints, and analyzing policing trends to make recommendations.
The office was created in early 2020, after recommendations by the city’s race and culture task force. Assistant city manager Valerie Washington is serving as an interim director following Neal’s departure.
The final round of candidate interviews will start June 1.
Emily Wolf is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at emily.wolf@fortworthreport.org or via Twitter. Sandra Sadek is a Report for America corps member, covering growth for the Fort Worth Report. You can contact her at sandra.sadek@fortworthreport.org or on Twitter at @ssadek19.
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