Everett proposed to become Suffolk register
Governor Maura Healey is recommending Stephanie Everett, the head of Boston’s police watchdog agency, to be appointed Suffolk Register of Probate and Family Court, replacing Felix D. Arroyo who announced his retirement in March.
Everett, currently the executive director of Boston’s Office of Police Accountability and Transparency — commonly referred to as OPAT — would be the first Black person to serve as Suffolk register of probate. The appointment still needs approval from the Governor’s Council.
“Stephanie Everett is uniquely qualified to step into this position as she has interacted with the court as both a young mother and an attorney, and she has built an incredible career advocating for justice and equity for her community of Boston,” Healey said in a statement Tuesday.
In 2021, Everett was made the first executive director of OPAT, which was formed in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, amid calls for real police reform with teeth.
Specifically, the office fields and reviews complaints from the public about law enforcement officers and has subpoena power to investigate police affairs. It operates independent of the Boston Police Department, which was crucial for those who supported its creation. The agency was charged with monitoring police and community relations, reviewing Police Department policies, and encouraging accountability and transparency within the department.
Two boards fall under OPAT: a nine-member Civilian Review Board and five-member Internal Affairs Oversight Panel.
Under the ordinance that created OPAT, the agency’s staff is charged with reviewing and classifying each complaint and making recommendations, which can include dismissal, referral for mediation, or referrals to either of the two boards. The Civilian Review Board is charged with reviewing and investigating certain complaints against the BPD, while the Internal Affairs Oversight Panel is tasked with providing external oversight for the department’s internal probes, to help ensure they are thorough and fair.
Now, Healey is tapping Everett to a crucial role in the management of a local state court that handles matters involving families and children, such as adoption, divorce, child support, and wills. The register of probate post, on an oft-overlooked office seen by some as a political anachronism, currently pays $174,000 annually, according to state records.
Arroyo, patriarch of one of the most well-known political families in Boston politics, retired from the post earlier this year. Arroyo became Suffolk register of probate in 2015 and was the first person of color to hold the position.
Healey can appoint an interim successor to serve the remainder of Arroyo’s term, which goes through 2024, according to her administration.
In a statement, Everett said she was “intimately familiar with the impact” the probate and family court can have on people’s lives, adding she would be honored to serve in the post.
The court, she said, is mostly unknown to residents “until they need it. That often comes at the most painful moments of their lives, when a marriage dissolves or they have a child at a young age or they experience the death of a loved one.”