By failing to adhere to an East Hampton Village deadline of May 1, the Springs Fire District and Sag Harbor Village have, by default, opted to use either East Hampton Town or Suffolk County for fire and emergency medical dispatch services starting next year.
“We needed commitments by May 1,” said Marcos Baladron, the East Hampton Village administrator. “It wasn’t that hard to meet that date, and we’ve been providing this service to them for decades. They want to go with somebody who’s never done it before, that’s their decision.”
“We have to vote on our budget. I can’t wait for them until November to make their decision,” East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen said Tuesday. (The village’s new fiscal year begins July 1.) “I’m assuming Springs is going to transition to the town, where they will receive the service for free.”
The village dispatch center has been the first point of contact for 911 calls for the town and other local fire and emergency medical service agencies for decades, but earlier this year the village proposed new contracts that would raise the price tag for that service in an effort to distribute costs proportionally to calls. The town, which has been a secondary public safety answering point, opted instead to become the primary point of contact for calls originating outside of the village.
Neither the Springs Fire District nor Sag Harbor Village had been offered a contract by the town with which to compare the village deal, an increase of about 3 percent from the prior year, and so both put off planned votes on the matter this week.
The Springs fire commissioners were originally planning to vote Monday. “We’re looking into every avenue,” said Pete Grimes, the chairman of the district’s board of commissioners. “We’re not in a terrible rush right now.”
Sag Harbor Mayor Tom Gardella said he hadn’t received a proposal from the town for fire and E.M.S. dispatching. “I made a promise to my board that we’re going to explore all of our options. I can’t commit to the village until I do that.” (Sag Harbor will continue to receive its police dispatch services from East Hampton Village. That’s a separate contract.)
This week’s developments weren’t the first time negotiations got tense.
At the center of the discussions was what the village called a “utilization table” that broke down the total number of 911 calls — 16,286 total in 2024 — by fire district and municipality. (Only 3,576 calls involved the village directly.) Using this table, the village sought to get paid a proportional amount for the dispatch service, the cost of which it argued fell unfairly on East Hampton Village taxpayers.
Ultimately, the village tossed the table and offered 3 percent increases to Springs and Sag Harbor.
The village budgeted about $3.7 million to run the service in 2024.
Back and forth letters and emails between Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, Mayor Larsen, and Mr. Baladron, obtained using Freedom of Information Law requests, hinted at a negotiation fraught with twists, turns, threats, apologies, and accusations.
The village first started dispatch discussions with the town in March 2024. When, by the winter, talks hadn’t progressed, the village presented the town with a temporary agreement in December 2024 that would last a year while they continued negotiations. That agreement contained a “hold harmless” clause, and an understanding “that the parties will work in good faith to establish a payment amount and schedule from the town to the village.”
On Feb. 14, 2025, the village offered the town a five-year contract, and gave the town until April 1 to respond. If the town failed to respond by that date, according to the agreement, the village reserved the right to terminate dispatch services to the town, with only a 30-day notice.
On March 25, the village hosted a meeting with the fire commissioners and two town council members, David Lys and Tom Flight, to discuss dispatch services. The morning after the meeting, Mr. Baladron wrote an email to Supervisor Burke-Gonzalez indicating frustration that Mr. Lys and Mr. Flight were only there to “observe and report” instead of to engage in any conversation about the service. “Even Mayor Larsen was a bit disheartened to learn that members of the town board were unwilling to speak to him directly about this subject,” he wrote.
“At the opposite end of the room, Mr. Schnell” — Eddie Schnell, the communications technician for the East Hampton Town police — “was not nearly as tight-lipped as the town’s councilmen, several times commenting to fire commissioners sitting at his table, ‘the town is not paying the village for dispatch services,’ and variations of the same comment throughout the night.”
With only a few days before the April 1 deadline, Mr. Baladron reiterated the terms of the December 2024 agreement. He said if the town didn’t decide by the deadline, the village would inform Suffolk County that it would “stop answering and transferring all 911 calls as early as May 1st.”
The next day, Mr. Baladron sent the supervisor another email, this time an apology. “The tone of negotiations has been frustrating lately, especially after Tuesday night’s meeting. To be completely candid, Mr. Schnell’s behavior and comments in our firehouse lit me up. My focus has always been on creating a better relationship between our two municipalities — something I truly believe is essential for the better of village residents, being town residents too.”
Nevertheless, a week later, the town had rejected the village’s five-year contract, hired five dispatchers, and told the village it would take town dispatching in house.
Shortly after, Mayor Larsen accused the town of attempting to take the village’s dispatch business too.
“The town held meetings with the Montauk Fire District, Springs Fire District, Amagansett Fire District, and the Village of Sag Harbor, which all have current contracts with the village for dispatching services that expire on Dec. 31, 2025,” wrote the mayor in an April 25 letter to the supervisor. “This was an attempt by the town to take these contracts from the village.”
The supervisor responded, “During my 12 years on the town board, the relationship between the town and village has always been courteous and respectful. However, the town is concerned with the tone discussions have taken in your most recent letter,” she wrote in a May 1 letter to the mayor.
Jack Emptage, the chairman of the Amagansett fire commissioners, said going with the town was never an option for his department.
“The services provided by the village are at a very high level. If it’s not broken, why fix it? The increase of 3 percent of what we were paying seemed exceedingly reasonable,” he said.
The budget for the Amagansett Fire District is $3 million a year. The village is charging it $170,000 for the dispatch service. “Quite frankly, we were concerned that the town, in order to put together the same level of service by the 1st of January, would find that a very difficult and challenging job.”
“We have stated on numerous occasions we are confident we have the dispatch room personnel, supervision, and oversight to work closely with Suffolk County 911 coordinators and ensure a smooth and professional transition,” East Hampton Town Police Chief Michael Sarlo wrote in an email Monday.
“We look at the level of service and we look at where there is a critical impact,” said Mr. Emptage of Amagansett. “This is life or death. If this gets screwed up, somebody can die.”
