Thursday, October 1, 2026
each, are communities that don’t typically interact. Although the two cities are on opposite parts of the island — about a 30 minute drive — officials from both met at the Glen Cove Senior Center to get to know each other and share the workings of their government, culture and aging population.
However, the meeting almost didn’t happen. Two days before their scheduled lunch at the senior center with Glen Cove Mayor Pamela Panzenbeck, Donna Gayden, who has been Long Beach's city manager for almost three years, unexpectedly resigned. Police Commissioner Ron Walsh is temporarily filling her seat until a permanent replacement is found.
Although Walsh had only been city manager for about 48 hours at the time, that didn’t stop him from coming to the senior center to fulfill a promise made by the previous administration.
“I wanted to hit the ground running,” Walsh explained.
The senior center is a place that is near and dear to Panzenbeck, especially since her aunt is a member of the adult day program in the center’s lower level. Panzenbeck said that when she was discussing the center with the previous Long Beach administration, she thought it best to invite them for a visit, rather than talk about the center over the phone.
Officials met to tour the center, which is home to programs such as the Age Friendly initiative and medical transport services as well as holding various classes and networking events for seniors. Panzenbeck said programs like these are vital to the city’s growing senior population.
“When you come here, it’s warm and loving,” Panzenbeck said “Everybody is so happy to be here.”
Walsh said that while touring the center, he was impressed with the efforts the center put into the socialization opportunities available to seniors as well as the designated space for them in the middle of the city.
“The level of services that they provide your senior population is something great.” Walsh said. “I would love to try to get programs like this into Long Beach, it’s very impressive. The level of care that they're showing is terrific.”
He was also impressed with the center’s lower level and said he was thinking of ways to implement similar programs into Long Beach.
“We're going to take a lot of ideas here and we're going to try and work them into some of our operations.” Walsh said. “We'll be in contact with the mayor.”
John McNally, the city’s public relations coordinator, said Long Beach has programs that cater to senior citizens, but they mostly focus on physical activity and computer literacy.
“We’re here because of the awards that this city has won with regard to their senior programming.” Walsh said. “One of the things that we want to make sure that we're doing a little bit is modeling best practices, and Glen Cove is a best practice to learn from.”
