Westwood Select Board Appoints Brookline Deputy Superintendent as New Police Chief

Select Board · Meeting of July 20, 2026

Westwood Select Board voted 2-1 to hire Brookline Deputy Superintendent Russell O'Neill as police chief and unanimously appointed KP Law as town counsel at a July 20 special meeting. Chair Mary Ann LeBlanc Cummings cast the lone dissenting vote on the police chief appointment, arguing that Lieutenant Mike DeLala, the department's internal interim chief who scored highest in the structured assessment center evaluation with a 91 versus 88 and 84 for his competitors, was the stronger choice and that bypassing him risked undermining morale in a department where 32 percent of surveyed officers already held a somewhat or very negative impression of the department. Members Aaron Sibley and Joe Prevatera favored O'Neill, citing his command experience overseeing roughly 102 sworn officers in Brookline's 140-officer department serving 63,000 residents, his Army National Guard deployment overseas, and what Sibley called "a very high level of personal integrity" demonstrated when O'Neill voluntarily disclosed a pending lawsuit in his closing interview remarks.

O'Neill's appointment is contingent on background screening and board ratification of an employment agreement. In the second vote, the board unanimously appointed KP Law, which represents approximately 130 Massachusetts municipalities and has 50 attorneys in four offices, to replace departing solo in-house counsel Patrick Ahern, effective August 1, 2026, with Town Administrator Connor Reed directed to finalize the fee arrangement.

In the full story:

• Who Was There
• Organizations And Documents Referenced
• The complete report, 2,265 words

Source: the Select Board meeting of July 20, 2026, reported from the official video recording and transcript.