Debra Conklin, Police Ombudsman Commission Chairperson, No Phone Number Available
Wednesday, April 27, 2016 at 2:12 p.m.
Commission Chairperson Deb Conklin has authorized the following related to the Permanent Ombudsman position:
Spokane's Office of Police Ombudsman Commission is deeply disappointed to learn U.S. Customs and Border Protection has denied a Visa to Raheel Humayun. Mr. Humayun was offered the position of Spokane Ombudsman in November of 2015. Mr. Humayun's credentials were impressive, and he would have been a very desirable person to fill this position had he been able to work in the United States.
The OPOC was concerned from the beginning that the only viable candidate for our Ombudsman, among the candidates forwarded to the Commission by the first Selection Committee (requested by the OPOC in December of 2014), was someone who would require us to go through this time consuming Visa process. But our only other option was to declare that the Selection Committee had not forwarded any qualified candidates and direct them to start over. Because it had taken that committee nine months to surface the first set of three candidates, we believed that we could have a strong Ombudsman in place sooner by offering the position to Mr. Humayun.
Unfortunately, that has not proved to be the case. Therefore, we will be going back to the second Selection Committee (formed in December, 2015) which has already been asked to begin meeting. We are confident that this Selection Committee will proceed with all diligence and surface three desirable candidates for this critically important position. In spite of pressure from several sources, the OPOC will not attempt to subvert the hiring process set forth in SMC 04.32. The Citizens of Spokane deserve the best Ombudsman that we can recruit and the Selection Committee and the OPOC will do everything in our power to give them that.
Debra L. Conklin, Chair
Office of Police Ombudsman Commission
dconklin@spokanecity.org
