The city is accepting applications for the job of executive director of the Atlanta Citizen Review Board -- again --beginning Wednesday when the position is to be reposted on the Internet.
Unlike in January when the position was first advertised, the job will be posted for a specified time, regardless of how many people apply. It will close at midnight Tuesday.
The vote on April 12 to offer the ACRB executive director job to New Orleans deputy police monitor Holly Wiseman was close and did not come easily, which has been the case with many of the board's decision. It took two ballots to get a majority vote.
But moments after that decision, several board members became upset when they learned the application process had been reopened for one day, on Jan. 9, which allowed Wiseman to apply after the initial period. Initially, the job posting was on the city's website for four days, Jan. 3-6. It was reposted for a day after Wiseman called a friend to ask about it after it was taken down. The friend asked the city's human resources department about the link to the posting for the $100,000 job and it was reposted. Wiseman was not mentioned in the inquiry to the city department.
Bill Castings, the city attorney who advises the board, said the application process was closed four days after it opened only because of the number of resumes submitted, 150. He said it was common for a job posting to go up again after being taken down.
Castings said 14 people, including Wiseman, applied on that extra day. Out of those 14, five were included in the final 15 and two of them were among the four finalists interviewed by the entire board.
Still, Wednesday the board rescinded its April 12 decision to offer the position to Wiseman in another close, and contentious, vote.
The board also decided that all who applied in January will have to re-submit their information if they are still interested in the job.
Wiseman said Tuesday she plans to apply again.
Of the four finalists, only Wiseman has experience with police oversight. At the same time, Sheena Robertson, who was among the 14 applying on the extra day, has been an ACRB investigator since 2009.
The agency has operated with a part-time interim executive director since November when Cristina Beamud resigned. For 3 1/2 years, Beamud faced opposition from the Atlanta Police Department, the police union and some of the board members. Beamud was the first to run the agency after it was created to address the public's distrust of APD after a 92-year-old woman was shot dead in her living room during a botched drug raid in 2006.
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