East Hampton Village Chief Eyes Southampton Job

Gerard Larsen, the chief of police in East Hampton Village, is interested in the top brass position in Southampton Town, where Chief Robert Pearce will leave at the end of September.

Chief Larsen has been with the East Hampton Village Police Department for 30 years, and has been its chief for 14. “During my career I have been fortunate to have had and continue to have great support within the community, with the mayor and the village board. However, I am certainly interested in other opportunities that may exist,” he said on Thursday.

He said he informed Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. that he had sent his resume to Southampton Town for consideration.

Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman, who hails from Montauk, has previously said he would consider applicants from within the department and outside of it.

In March, Southampton’s police chief announced that he would be retiring, something he has to do by his 60th birthday in July due to a New York State law passed in the 1960s specifically for and at the requests of the Town of Southampton and the Village of Westhampton. The town board, however, asked the chief to stay on through Sept. 30 to avoid introducing new leadership in the middle of the summer.

The town board formally appointed a search committee at its meeting on Tuesday. In addition to the supervisor, Councilman Christine Scalera, and Frank Zappone, the deputy supervisor, the committee includes James Burke, the town attorney; Russell Kratoville, the town management services administrator; Joseph Monteith, a member of law enforcement, and Minerva Perez, who was recently named the executive director of Organizacion Latino-Americana of Long Island, or OLA. Ms. Perez used to be the director of residential and transitional services at the Retreat, the domestic violence services and education organization based in East Hampton.

Mr. Zappone said on Thursday that the committee was finalizing a strategy on how to best advertise the position this week, and would advertise the opening for about a month. The goal of the group is to have a recommendation ready for the town board by early August. That would give Chief Pearce’s successor enough time to give notice at his or her current position and allow for a transitional period before the chief officially retires.

Chief Larsen, an East Hampton native, started his career as a traffic control officer with the village in 1983, working for two summers before becoming a part-time officer in 1984. About two years later, he was hired by the New York Police Department and began the academy, but just two weeks after that, the village police, led by Chief Glen Stonemetz, made him an offer. He began working full time for the department in February 1986.

He was a patrol officer until 1990, when he was promoted to detective, a position he held for five years, before briefly being a road sergeant. He worked as a detective sergeant until 2001, when he was made a lieutenant. Just two years later, he became the chief, taking over when Randy Sarris retired.

Chief Larsen oversees 25 officers, 17 dispatchers, and about 20 seasonal traffic control officers. He has brought the village department to the New York State accreditation level. In 2011, he took over and revamped the East Hampton Village Communications Department, a dispatch center that receives all 911 calls for the Town of East Hampton and Sag Harbor Village and dispatches the two village police departments, five fire departments, and two ambulance agencies that serve the area. The dispatching service is also in the process of becoming an accredited agency in the state.

Chief Larsen makes $180,558 annually in his current position, Rebecca Molinaro, the village clerk, said Thursday. Chief Pearce’s salary is $182,212 per year.