San José's independent police auditor will retire at the end of the month. He was placed on leave last week with no public explanation.

Aubrey's exit is the latest in a two-decade churn at the civilian office charged with second-guessing the San José Police Department: seven auditors since 1994, several gone amid controversy, an office that can recommend but not compel, and a City Council that voted in 2023 to deny it the power to investigate misconduct on its own. The mainstream hits reported the departure; the story beneath it is a watchdog post the city keeps chewing through and won't strengthen.

Eddie Aubrey, a 67-year-old former police officer and prosecutor who took over the office in May 2024, will retire at the end of August, Mayor Matt Mahan's office said Tuesday. The city placed Aubrey on administrative leave on Aug. 4. The Mercury News first reported the leave; KQED's Joseph Geha detailed the retirement and its context. Aubrey did not respond to KQED's requests for comment.

Mahan declined to say what happened, calling it a confidential personnel matter, while crediting Aubrey with tightening how the auditor's office works with the department it monitors. "We have much clearer protocols between the IPA and [SJPD] internal affairs when it comes to timely access to information and their working relationship," the mayor told KQED, adding that the office is fully staffed with "really talented" employees. Deputy Independent Police Auditor Dwight White is running it in the interim, and is due to deliver the office's annual report to the council on Sept. 15.

My preference, of course, would be to have someone who is there for a longer period of time because I think it adds stability," he told KQED.

The reassurances land against a long record of instability. The Independent Police Auditor is a civilian post that collects complaints against San José officers, reviews the department's own internal-affairs investigations into misconduct and shootings, and publishes an annual report recommending policy changes. What it does not have is teeth: it can audit and recommend, but it cannot compel the department to do anything.

That gap has fueled a revolving door, according to KQED's account. Teresa Guerrero-Daley, the city's first auditor, served more than a decade beginning in 1994. Every one of her successors has lasted a fraction of that. Aaron Zisser lasted less than a year. He blamed personal attacks from the police union. Shivaun Nurre retired unexpectedly in June 2023 — a departure that grew more awkward when it emerged she had gotten into a heated, drunken argument with a San José officer at the city's Greek Festival shortly before leaving. The then-assistant auditor, Eva Roa, resigned with a letter accusing city management of ignoring the office's recommendations. Karyn Sinunu-Towery, a 30-year Santa Clara County prosecutor, filled in until Aubrey arrived.

The turnover is not just personality. San José voters expanded the office's investigatory access through a 2020 ballot measure. Nurre, echoing a consultant's report, pushed to go further and let the auditor run its own misconduct investigations rather than merely grade the police department's. Former Mayor Sam Liccardo found council support for that idea in late 2022. It ran into fierce opposition from the San José Police Officers' Association, and in November 2023 the council voted 8-2 to reject the expansion outright.

So the pattern repeats: an oversight office that advocates say is under-powered, a police union that has bristled at attempts to strengthen it, and a chair that keeps emptying. Mahan acknowledged the short tenures himself this week. "My preference, of course, would be to have someone who is there for a longer period of time because I think it adds stability," he told KQED.

The city says a nationwide search begins immediately. The harder question — why the self-described safest big city in America can't keep a police watchdog in the chair, and won't let the one it hires do more than take notes — is not on the recruitment posting.