The City Council named former Superintendent of Schools Xavier Botana to a police oversight board Monday night as part of a slate of appointments to individuals across various committees and commissions.
Botana was voted onto the Police Citizen Review Subcommittee is a group of seven commissioners who review the city and police department’s process of responding to citizen complaints against Portland police.
Michael Goldman, the city’s acting corporation counsel, told the Phoenix that while city code prohibits former city employees and councilors from serving on the police review subcommittee for 10 years after working for the city, Botana was an employee of Portland Public Schools, so that code doesn’t apply to him. It also would not apply to school board members.
Botana had planned to retire this coming June before announcing his resignation in November, effective at the end of January.
Botana’s appointment is to the existing version of the PCRS. The city will assemble a new police oversight board in July, one of the Charter Commission recommendations passed by voters last November. A Racial Equity and Steering Committee recommended in 2021 that the existing police citizen review subcommittee be dissolved because it lacked “capacity to hold anyone accountable.”
The mayor and council will select members of the new board, choosing candidates from the existing board first, Goldman said.
