Surprising no one (but at a cost of $100K) Albuquerque Mayor hires insider as new police chief

Way back in January RGF president Paul Gessing was asked for a KOAT Channel 7 story to comment on the Mayor’s decision to spend $100,000 on the search for a new police chief. As Gessing and numerous others believed Cecily Barker likely had the inside track on the job. Gessing stated for the record that if the search was a genuine one spending $100K was not an issue, but if the City’s leadership already had their candidate in mind then it was a waste of money.

Well, about 2.5 months later we know that the Mayor has indeed settled on Barker for the position. We don’t have any specific problems with her and wish her the best at APD, but question, of course, the need to spend six figures on a nationwide search only to wind up with the same person in the job as we expected all along.

You can see each of the KOAT stories here.