Michele Andre, the new Dallas Police Oversight Director, attended her first community police oversight meeting Tuesday night, just one week after officially starting the job.
It’s been a busy first several days. Already, Andre told NBC 5 she has been in ongoing conversations with the Community Police Oversight Board and the interim city manager to make the transition into her new role go as smoothly as possible.
This follows a meeting of the Dallas City Council in which council members tasked interim City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert with producing a 90-day action plan to restructure the police oversight office.
In Tuesday evening’s community oversight meeting, Tolbert said she would work closely with Andre to develop that plan. Board members said they wanted assurance that they would have significant input before presenting it to the council.
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Board Chair John Mark Davidson said there was a collective agreement that changes should be made to help the board do more effective work.
“One of the key ingredients was getting the director here so that she could be a part of those conversations, so we could dream as board and also as a city, of what the office of the oversight board could be to better serve the people of Dallas,” said Davidson.
Andre told NBC 5 it’s been a busy transition, with several major events since her arrival. She said she’s already been out to the scene of a critical incident.
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“I’m in the process of accessing and auditing the office to see ways that we can improve as well as reaching out to the board members,” she said. “What are the things that have worked? And I’m going to reach out to some external stakeholders to figure out what are they looking for.”
