Huntington Local

By Deborah S. Morris
deborah.morris@newsday.com

Village of Lloyd Harbor officials unanimously voted to name Charles Flynn provisional police chief at its meeting Monday night.

“The board has been very pleased by the performance of Captain Flynn during the past two and half years,” Village Mayor Leland Hairr said.

Flynn must now pass the police chief’s civil service exam expected to be administered by Suffolk County some time early next year, Hairr said.

“Once, or if, he passes the exam,” Hairr said, “he can become the permanent chief.”

According to village spokeswoman Judy White, Flynn, a former New York City police officer, has been with the department since 1984. Flynn had most recently served as the village's probationary captain.

When former police commissioner Bernie Welsh retired in 2005, Hairr said Flynn was given greater managerial and leadership responsibilities for the department and was called acting senior officer reporting to the village’s police hierarchy. He was then given the title managerial captain with a pay raise.

But officials from the Suffolk County Human Resources said last year that action may have circumvented civil service law when the village appointed Flynn to oversee the police department. County officials said the issue was with the structure of the department, which appeared to have Flynn performing conflicting roles: oversight of the department while running the day-to-day operations.

Flynn’s title was then changed to that of probationary captain.

Last month the board voted to have a police chief run the village’s 12-member department, replacing the police commission. Since 1985, the village police department has been run by a board of police commissioners consisting of two trustees and a chairperson appointed by the mayor, with the approval of the board of trustees.