Long Beach
HERALD Also serving Point Lookout & East Atlantic Beach
Athletes mourn spring season
City’s sanitation workers honored
special meeting set for thursday
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Vol. 31 No. 18
APRIl 30 - MAY 6, 2020
L.B. police commissioner plans to retire the full-time city manager. “I’m just minding the store,” he said. In 2019 the city named CorporaLong Beach Police Commis- tion Counsel Rob Agostisi acting sioner Michael Tangney, who’s city manager, and Tangney known as “a cop’s cop” and a no- returned to full-time duty as nonsense manager, has told city police commissioner. Gayden officials he plans to retire at the was appointed in February. end of May, ending a 42-year Tangney rose rapidly in the career. Police Department, John McNally, becoming a lieutenexecutive assistant ant before being to Interim City Mannamed commissionager Donna Gayden, er in 2012. In his said that Tangney years as head of the informed the city force, he was creditearlier this week of ed with reducing his intentions to crime, running a step down as head of tight financial ship, the 69-member force. securing funds for McNally said the surveillance camerCity Council would JIM MulVANeY as and police trainappoint a temporary Resident ing, and seeing to it commissioner while that his of ficers the city searches for were adept in the a permanent replacement. use of Narcan to treat opioid Tangney did not return calls overdoses. seeking comment. His pay — said to total over Tangney has a long history $300,000 in 2015 — raised conwith the city, and served as both cerns among residents. But it police commissioner and acting included a base salary of city manager from late 2017, $213,000, retroactive and vacawhen then City Manager Jack tion pay and other compensaSchnirman was elected Nassau tion. County comptroller, until JanuIn 2018, Tangney was sued by ary 2019. a motorist who claimed Tangney When Schnirman left, Tang- had punched him in the face durney said he was not seeking to be Continued on page 3
By JAMes BeRNsteIN jbernstein@liherald.com
Eric Dunetz/Herald
A special tribute to first responders The Navy’s Blue Angels and the Air Force’s Thunderbirds few over Long Island and New York City on Tuesday to salute those on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic.
In a densely populated city, Covid-19 total rises to over 600 By JAMes BeRNsteIN and DARwIN YANes jbernstein@liherald.com, dyanes@liherald.com
A total of 622 people in the City of Long Beach had tested positive for Covid-19 as of Tuesday — about 1.9 percent of the population — according to the Nassau County Department of Health. Long Beach has the 11thhighest number of coronavirus cases of any municipality in the county. The Chamber of Commerce Tuesday warned that if the city is still large closed as late as July
Fourth, some 50 percent of its approximately 800 businesses — restaurants, retail stores and one- or two-person companies — would never re-open. The Health Department said it began tracking Covid-19 cases on March 5. The Village of Hempstead, with 1,700, has the most, followed by Freeport, with 1,200, and Valley Stream, with 954. But Long Beach has more cases than other communities with dense populations, such as Woodmere, which has 509, Oceanside, 466, and Mineola, 287. Health experts said that what
makes Long Beach vulnerable is that it is both densely populated and small. In fact, it is the 35th most densely populated community in the country, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Long Beach measures just two square miles, but fewer than 40 percent of its homes are detached. It also has among the largest concentrations of nursing homes and extended-care facilities in Nassau County. At one home, the New York State Department of Health reported, Continued on page 9
H
e’s a dedicated Long Beach guy who cares about his job.