New top cop in Long Beach

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The City of Long Beach made it official Tuesday night, saying it had hired Ron Walsh, a veteran Nassau County police official, as its next police commissioner.

City Council President John Bendo announced Walsh’s hiring at the council’s regular meeting. Walsh, chief of support for the NCPD, replaces interim commissioner Phil Ragona, who announced his departure last week.

Ragona had come out of retirement five months ago to head the 60-member force. In all, Ragona had been with the Long Beach department for 34 years. He resigned when it became apparent that Walsh would be getting his job.

“We extended an offer to a police commissioner candidate,” Bendo said at the virtual meeting. “Ron Walsh will be joining us from the Nassau County Police Department. He will be our next police commissioner.”

Bendo said that Walsh, 55, hadn’t even been added to the city payroll last week when he “sprang into action” after Long Beach’s computer systems were hacked, offering advice and support to get them working again.

The City Council also voted to make use of more advanced Microsoft systems in the hope of avoiding any such breaches in the future. The hacks were being investigated by the state Department of Homeland Security.

Walsh and Ragona had appeared before the public in late October, with each making the case that he was the best man for the job. Ragona stressed his more than three decades of experience in Long Beach. Walsh said he had helped run a larger department but was also familiar with the city.

Members of the department’s Police Benevolent Association expressed their support for Ragona in a poll, according to people in the city, saying they preferred the police chief they knew to one they did not. They also said they believed Ragona had done a good job as the city’s top cop.

Neither Bendo nor other city officials explained on Tuesday night why Walsh was chosen for the job.

In a brief statement, Walsh said, “I want to extend my thanks to the board and I look forward to working with you.”

Walsh has said he graduated from the Senior Management Institute for Police and the FBI National Academy, and that he was “an accomplished lecturer, trainer and educator.”

In a statement Wednesday morning, Bendo said that Walsh “has an incredibly broad and successful professional profile, which makes him exceptionally qualified for this job, but most important is that he is deeply committed to the kind of community-based policing and public safety that Long Beach deserves.”

According to the city, Walsh is a Massapequa resident but has many family connections in Long Beach, where he spent most of his formative years, and where he continues to spend his summers to this day. Long Beach is also where Walsh began his law enforcement career, serving as an Auxiliary Police officer and as a “summer special,” augmenting the policing effort on the boardwalk and on the beach.

Other business

At the meeting Tuesday night, the City Council also approved a series of bonds to finance two lawsuits filed against Long Beach, one by a contractor who had worked on an aging firehouse, and the other by a man who said he had slipped and injured himself on city property.

Roy Lester, a former president of the Long Beach Board of Education, questioned the increased borrowing, saying it would negatively impact the city’s finances. City officials have been trying to improve Long Beach’s financial situation after years of what they say has been gross mismanagement by previous administrations.

There are also worries about the rising number of Covid-19 cases, confirmed by John McNally, executive assistant to City Manager Donna Gayden. “We are well into a second wave,” McNally said. “With the holidays coming, we expect the numbers to rise.”

Indoor dining is still permitted in the city’s restaurants, but Gov. Andre Cuomo has said he anticipates another statewide shutdown of nonessential businesses if positivity rates continue inching upward.