News

Fire commissioners say call was handled properly

PETER BOODY PHOTO | Police Chief James Read, left, played digital recordings of Southold dispatch calls for members of the Board of Fire Commissioners Monday including, from center, Chairman Richard Surozenski, Larry Lechmanski and Andy Steinmueller.

After listening Monday night to a digital recording of a Shelter Island woman’s call to Town Police last month reporting she’d had a small fire on a stove top, Shelter Island’s fire commissioners said they were satisfied that the Southold Town Police dispatcher who took the call handled it properly.

The commissioners last month expressed concern that the full Fire Department should have been called out immediately. The caller  told the dispatcher she’d had a stove-top fire because she’d left a burner on while showering. She said the fire was out and wanted someone to come by to check on it — but not the whole Fire Department because there was no emergency.

A police officer immediately checked at the house after telling the dispatcher to alert the Fire Department to send one truck.

Also on Monday night, the commissioners adopted without changes their proposed 2013 budget, which calls for $831,286 in expenditures, up 2.4 percent from this year’s figure of $811,578 and requiring $792,976 to be raised through property taxes, up $18,080 or 2.2 percent from 2012. Because of a rollover credit from 2012, the adjusted tax falls below the state-mandated annual tax-hike cap of 2 percent.

For further details, read the October 25 Shelter Island Reporter E-paper