The City of Santa Barbara is looking to fill the final opening on the reimagined Fire and Police Commission, which was overhauled last year to ensure a more transparent and efficient model of police oversight in the city.
Last year — following a huge push by advocacy groups to change police oversight in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in 2020 — Santa Barbara City Council decided to take the city’s existing Fire & Police Commission, which had meetings that were not held in City Council chambers or live-streamed to the public, and reconstitute it with five all-new members, who were appointed in December and began meeting in January.
But in the few months since the commission began working, one of the commissioners, Ana Zepeda, decided to step down for personal reasons. According to commission staff, Zepeda had missed a few of the most recent meetings, most recently in June, and had trouble juggling her position as commissioner along with her other obligations.