Pat Ryan thanks Orange County police chiefs for public safety service

Pat Ryan used the Orange County police chiefs picnic to salute the county’s law enforcement leaders, thanking officers for keeping communities safe across Orange County. The gathering brought together chiefs hosted by Dominick Blasko, John Ewanciw and Chief Rader, and it also put a spotlight on the network of training, coordination and shared resources that now underpins policing in the county.

Blasko, who serves as president of the Police Chiefs Association of Orange County and chief of the Town of Crawford Police Department, has helped steer an organization that spent years pressing for a local training site. That push finally produced Orange County’s first police academy, which opened in 2006 and remains a central piece of the county’s public safety infrastructure. The association’s footprint has also extended to Middletown, where a renovated former juvenile detention center has been rented by the Police Chiefs Association of Orange County.

The picnic came against a broader backdrop of federal money and major enforcement actions. In September 2024, Ryan said Orange County would receive nearly $2 million in public-safety funding, with part of that money intended for a real-time intelligence center in Goshen. That investment was pitched as a way to strengthen coordination among local departments facing drug crimes, gun violence and other regional threats.

Orange County police and prosecutors showed that kind of cooperation in June 2018, when a countywide drug sweep resulted in 49 arrests targeting street-level dealers. More recently, in May 2026, county and state officials announced 17 arrests in a narcotics and gun-trafficking investigation tied to the county, underscoring how often Orange County agencies now work across municipal lines.

Ewanciw, who became Middletown police chief in July 2017, represents another piece of that local leadership structure. With chiefs, county officials and federal lawmakers all connected to the same public-safety conversation, the picnic served as a reminder that Orange County’s policing priorities now run through training, technology, intelligence sharing and coordinated enforcement as much as through any single department.