Boise police oversight director resigns amid office overhaul. City names interim leader

Jacob Scholl
·2 min read

The city of Boise has named an interim director for its Office of Police Oversight after its former director resigned on Monday.

In a Tuesday news release, the mayor’s office announced that Jesus Jara will be the OPO’s interim director after former leader Natalie Camacho Mendoza submitted her resignation effective Monday, May 31.

City officials are in the process of overhauling the Office of Police Oversight in the effort to create a new Office of Police Accountability, which the city has described as having a larger public profile and a full-time director. The director position has been a part-time job.

Jara will serve as the OPO’s interim director until a full-time director for the new accountability office is found, according to the release. Jara has experience in Boise, having worked as an investigative analyst for the police oversight office and as a compliance specialist for Boise’s human resources office. He comes back to Boise from his job as a senior HR analyst in Benton County, Oregon.

The application window for the full-time accountability director job closed last week, according to the release. Boise Mayor Lauren McLean and Council President Elaine Clegg will hold final interviews after candidates are reviewed by a community panel. McLean will then decide on a new director and bring that candidate to the City Council for confirmation.

In April, Camacho Mendoza told the Idaho Statesman that she was disappointed that the police oversight office, in its current form, would be dismantled. A Treasure Valley attorney, she had been in the job since 2015.

“As a longtime advocate for the Latino community and an advocate for communities of color, I feel like the model we have currently has been pretty effective for over 22 years,” she told the Statesman then.

Boise is the only Idaho city with an office for police oversight. However, the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes have a citizen commission that operates differently than Boise’s.