Laura Farinella, a Long Beach deputy police chief who lives in Orange County, will become the next Laguna Beach police chief, the city manager announced Monday.
Farinella, who starts work next month, succeeds Chief Paul Workman, who announced his intention to retire last August.
Farinella was selected from a talented pool of applicants, City Manager John Pietig said in a statement, which included internal candidates.
Farinella’s 25 years in public safety began in Long Beach in 1990 and she has worked in all of the department’s multiple patrol divisions and held various command staff positions, says the statement.
“Laura’s success at community outreach and working collaboratively with department personnel and the community really set her apart from other candidates,” Pietig said.
Laguna’s police chief earns $192,700, matching the pay of the fire chief and the assistant city manager. The chief supervises 47 sworn officers and 40 civilians, including the animal services division. The department’s $14.6 million budget comprises 21 percent of the city’s total $72.2 million budget in 2014, city budget documents show.
Workman, 60, spent five years in the department’s top job and a 38-year police career devoted solely to Laguna’s 24,000 residents.
Farinella earned $178,569 as one of three top deputies for the police department in Long Beach, a city of 462,000 people, according to the city’s 2014 budget. The force includes 820 sworn officers and 378 full-time equivalent civilian jobs. The department’s $175 million budget included special funding for gang enforcement, surveillance cameras, recruiting 40 new officers and keeping emergency response times to under five minutes. Its officers responded to 650,000 calls for a service in 2013.
Farinella holds a bachelor’s degree in communications from Chapman University, and a master’s degree in emergency services administration from California State University at Long Beach. She is a graduate of the FBI’s National Academy and National Executive Institute, and has completed other post-graduate leadership programs.
Farinella and her spouse and two children live in Rancho Santa Margarita. She starts in Laguna on March 16. “I also look forward to bringing a fresh perspective to the law enforcement services of such a unique, charming and progressive city,” she said in a statement.
“Workman, 60, spent five years in the department’s top job and a 38-year police career devoted solely to Laguna’s 24,000 residents.”
For the last FIVE years, Workman has led the Laguna Beach Police Department from the GUTTER to the SEWER regarding Professionalism and Ethics. Our COWARD of a Police Chief has NEVER made an effort to communicate with me, just like his Predecessor, the Infamous Michael Sellers of Fullerton SHAME( the FIRST time the OCDA had the GUTS to do the right thing and prosecute a PSYCHO hanging out behind a CORRUPT Badge) never spoke to the LOCAL parents regarding his officers KILLING a homeless man.
I call Workman POPE because of the similarities of how Workman protects his
PERVERTS to the way the BUM in Rome protects his Pedophiles: LBPD is NEVER wrong, and goes after the accusers with Character Assassination and PERVERTS MY Constitution, which his PEONS all swore to defend and enforce, not act like some THIRD WORLD Military enforcing the will of KING JOHNNY, our effete City Manager who conducted the SECRET Search for our New Police Chief.
Let’s hope that the NEW police Chief is different than the OLD POPE, besides being a female. PERVERTS can be either sex; I’m hoping for an Ethical Chief, that understands the ethics that are SUPPOSED to separate American Law Enforcement from the Third World PEONS who patrol Laguna Beach. If our new Chief is who she thinks she is, I suggest clearing out all the dishonest cops, start with the less than a dozen you will have left, and build a Professional Police Department that even a SNOBBISH City such as Laguna Beach WILL be Proud of.
Eli Grossman
Mr. Grossman ran an unsuccessful campaign for City Council based on the NEED to replace LBPD with the OCSD, and the lack of ethics, Character, and Professionalism that Laguna Beach’s leaders possess.