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The City of Charlottesville announced last week that the Police Civilian Oversight Board (PCOB) officially has a new director.
City Council appointed James Walker, who has been serving as acting director for nearly a year, as permanent director, according to a city news release.
Walker stepped in as interim director after Inez Gonzalez resigned as executive director last August to take a similar role in California. Prior to her departure, she told Health and Safety Reporter Anastasiia Carrier about many systemic issues that hindered the Board from delivering on its stated goal of independent police oversight.
When the PCOB was created, it was tasked with a variety of complex responsibilities — to investigate complaints, audit internal police investigations, analyze policing practices and suggest policy changes — with limited time, financial support and legal constraints.
It has been an uphill battle for the PCOB more or less since its inception. In the last two years alone, it went without independent counsel to represent its interests as it also struggled to retain board members, while the Charlottesville Police Department temporarily stopped sharing records with the Board.
But in late 2025, while Walker served as the interim director, the Board regrouped. It added new members, elected a new chair and vice chair and began cleaning up some of the ordinance that governs its function.
Significantly, part of the path forward included asking City Council to change its oversight model, which would include officially giving up its power to conduct independent investigations.
As Ana reported earlier this year, that investigative power was central to what many community members envisioned for the PCOB. However, due to a host of legal and practical factors, it has never actually conducted an investigation or held a public hearing since it was created.
Ana has done some excellent reporting on this issue for some time, and if you need to get caught up, you can read her report from May:
From May: Charlottesville’s Police Civilian Oversight Board seeks to drop investigative powers
As the Board continues to regroup, it has also sent out a community survey seeking residents’ input on their interactions with CPD. Here’s how you take that survey:
Share your experiences with Charlottesville police with the Police Civilian Oversight Board
Charlottesville’s Police Civilian Oversight Board wants to strengthen accountability and trust between the Charlottesville Police Department and the public. To work toward that goal, the PCOB created a survey asking community members to share their experiences with CPD. The survey is anonymous, and will not collect any personal information unless you choose to provide it in your responses.
And before we go, if you’ve been putting off early voting for the upcoming primary elections, now is the time to do it!
Early in-person voting will continue through Saturday, Aug. 1 at your local Registrar’s office, and Primary Election Day is a week from today on Tuesday, Aug. 4. You can learn more about what (and who) is on your ballot and other key information in our 2026 Central Virginia Voter Guide.
As always, you told us what you wanted to know from your candidates in our voter survey — from immigration enforcement to housing costs to data centers — and we sent those questions to the primary candidates. Read their answers in our Q&As here.
Stay safe and take care of each other,
Akash Sinha, Managing Editor
