When some public figures disappear from the scene, you’re glad to see them gone, glad to be able to forget about them.

With others, when they return, you’re glad that there are indeed second acts in American lives.

When former Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell was defeated in his bid for a second term by the unfortunate Alex Villanueva, it was a loss for stability, civility and competent smarts in the office of the top cop of the nation’s largest county.

Happily for Angelenos, McDonnell, also the former chief of police in Long Beach, didn’t just retire to Scottsdale, as he surely could have done.

He stayed here and stayed involved, taking a leadership role at the Safe Communities Institute at the USC Price School of Public Policy, from which he’d received his master’s degree.

But this month, when Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass selected McDonnell as the next LAPD police chief, it was one of those rare happy surprises in local politics and indeed law-enforcement administration. Right now, right here, is the time for promoting experience and a steady hand in a city that is grappling with crime in its present and the looming logistics of the 2028 Olympics in its future. McDonnell is the perfect choice to rise to those challenges.

And though most Angelenos knew McDonnell as sheriff, he in fact spent the bulk of his career rising through the ranks of the Los Angeles Police Department, where the Bostonian took his first job as police officer 1 after graduating back East with a bachelor’s in criminal justice. He held every rank in the department except chief, serving as the second in command to William Bratton before decamping for the Long Beach chief’s job.

Announcing her appointment, Bass said she made the choice to “reduce crime and make Los Angeles safer by growing and strengthening the LAPD, building up community relations and making sure our city is prepared.”

McDonnell said his goals include enhancing public safety, restoring morale and bringing the department back to “full strength,” which would mean hiring hundreds of new officers in a tough time for police recruiting.

He has our backs, and we have his.