________________ LONG BEACH _______________
CoMMuNitY uPDAte infections as of March 24
3,659
infections as of March 17 3,555
$1.00
HERALD Also serving Point Lookout & East Atlantic Beach
Students hit milestone
Rabbi Jack’s Passover message
off-duty NYPD officer is arrested
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Vol. 32 No. 13
MARCH 25 - 31, 2021
City manager marks year full of challenges
CAtHeRiNe lewiS HAS kept in top shape, and has become a paid firefighter. She is undergoing an 18-week training program at a fire academy in Westchester County.
allowed non-residents to use them as well. Gayden quickly assembled a Donna Gayden, who had been team to tackle the task of restora municipal finance expert in ing order to the city’s finances. the Midwest, became Long Her no-nonsense, business-like Beach’s city manager a little style helped her bring in a budover a year ago. She get last year with a is already preparing 1.8 percent tax to move on. increase, the lowest But not quite yet. in years. She also G ayd e n , L o n g put forward a fiveBeach’s first female year plan to guide and first Black city the city’s finances, manager, was hired which includes the to straighten out the monitoring of all city’s then widening expenses, a search financial crisis, the for new sources of result of years of fisrevenue and the cal mismanagement u p d at i n g o f t h e by previous admin- DoNNA GAYDeN city’s financial and istrations, current other records with Long Beach City Council memcomputer systems. bers have said. Over city manager “I’m a team playt h e p a s t y e a r, e r, a n d w e p u t Gayden also had to together a team,” navigate the coronavirus pan- Gayden told the Herald earlier demic, following often complicat- this week. “I hope we’re in a beted state guidelines on how res- ter position, but it’s not exactly taurants, bars and stores could where we want to be.” operate. Last week the city announced The beaches were another a memorandum of agreement issue. Last spring, large crowds with the paid Fire Department, gathered on the boardwalk, rais- allowing for the hiring of three ing fears of Covid-19 spread. The new firefighters, including the city initially opened the beaches city’s first female firefighter. The only to residents, but later, when city remains in negotiations coronavirus cases dropped, it Continued on page 10
By JAMeS BeRNSteiN jbernstein@liherald.com
i
hope we’re in a better position, but it’s not exactly where we want to be.
Courtesy City of Long Beach
Long Beach hires first female paid firefighter in its history By JAMeS BeRNSteiN jbernstein@liherald.com
On Sept. 11, 2001, Catherine Lewis sat in her fourthg rade class at Our Lady Queen of Peace School on Staten Island, watching TV images of smoke billowing from the World Trade Center. As a 9-year-old, she had only scant knowledge of what was happening, but she
was ter rified. “Teachers were running around the hall,” she recalled last week. Soon she was picked up by a relative and taken home. But the images of the firefighters running toward, not away from, the burning twin towers have stayed with her ever since. So much so, she said, that she decided to become a firefighter. On March 16, Lewis, 28, was swor n in as the first
female paid firefighter in the 111-year history of the Long Beach Fire Department. She was joined by two other recruits, both men, bringing the number of paid firefighters in the 150-member department to 17. “I grew up in New York City, after 9/11,” Lewis said. “The firefighters and the first responders became the heart and soul of the city. Continued on page 5