Philly’s Citizens Police Oversight Commission hires permanent director after a tumultuous year

After a year that saw a third of its commissioners resign amid infighting, Philadelphia’s Citizens Police Oversight Commission has hired its first permanent executive director, a former top police watchdog in Dallas.

Tonya McClary, who most recently served as the first police monitor for the Dallas Police Department, was appointed to the position Tuesday night at the commission’s monthly meeting.

McClary could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

She will start in May and will be paid $175,000 a year, commission chair Jahlee Hatchett said.

Since the agency was created by City Council in response to calls for police accountability after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Anthony Erace has served as the interim executive director. Erace is a holdover from the city’s previous iteration of a police oversight agency, the Police Advisory Commission.

Erace said he welcomed McClary’s arrival and wished her the best for her tenure.

“Staff and CPOC are ready to welcome her with open arms and get to the business of police oversight in Philadelphia. It’s been a long time coming, and this is the next stage in the natural development of CPOC and we’re very excited to have her,” he said.

The commission is meant to have an executive director, chief counsel, and other staff and has subpoena power and access to crime scenes and records. The body is meant to review all complaints against police made by citizens, employees of the Police Department, and other city workers.

The agency replaced the Police Advisory Commission, which many described as underfunded and relatively powerless. The legislation that created the commission, sponsored by Councilmember Curtis Jones Jr., was designed to have nine appointed commissioners to increase transparency and representation in police districts across the city.

But since its creation in 2021 the commission has been plagued by internal squabbles and has accomplished little, critics say.

Last May, then-commissioner’s vice chair, Afroza Hossain, and commissioners Maryelis Santiago and Benjamin Lerner all resigned within hours of each other, citing a toxic environment and constant fights with three other commissioners.

When she resigned, Hossain said the commission had been stymied and unable to to make any headway when it came to police reform and oversight, instead occupied with dysfunction and bullying.

Commissioners argued over topics including a physical altercation that happened during a community meeting and whether CPOC should allow a staffer to be sent to a national police oversight conference, according to reviews of the commission’s public meetings.

One of the main issues that divided the commission was the hiring of a permanent executive director.

Four of the commissioners, Hossain said at the time, had teamed up to prevent Erace from becoming the permanent executive director. Three of the commissioners countered that there was no plan to fire Erace, and that they had merely raised concerns about him as a potential candidate.