The Fresno Police Reviewer—A Job No One Wants?

“Queer Eye…” learned on Thursday that the first effort to hire a permanent police reviewer for the City of Fresno failed. A second search effort is reported to be underway.

The source, who was close to the process, revealed the first search could find just one potential candidate. “We had a highly-regarded firm helping; we made phone calls, trying to get people to interview. We could only find one person.”

He said that, despite an offer from the City to raise the salary, the sole candidate finally said “no.” He added there are very few people experienced in auditing law enforcement agencies; it’s a new area of auditing.

The source also said no one was that interested in the Fresno job. Doing police review is difficult in the best of circumstances, even more so in a conservative community like Fresno. People in the community say it would be hard to convince anyone to leave where they’re at already, to take a job where there was little support for it behind closed doors in the local City Hall.

The auditor position is being filled on an interim basis by Robert Aaronson, from Santa Cruz, where he is the city’s police auditor. He also serves as police auditor for the City of Davis.