East Hampton Village Ambulance

In June, when Suffolk County Supreme Court Justice Jerry Garguilo ordered the dissolution of the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association, the only question left unanswered was what would happen with the nearly $400,000 in the association’s bank account.

On Friday, Justice Jerry Garguilo of the Supreme Court of Suffolk County ruled that the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association, a nonprofit that had served the village since 1975, could no longer exist, and ordered it dissolved. 

Mary Mott, chief of the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association, along with Mary Ellen McGuire, the first assistant chief, Laura Van Binsbergen, the treasurer, and Suzanne Dayton, the secretary, have filed an Article 78 petition in Suffolk County Supreme Court, to dissolve the ambulance association and transfer its funds to a new nonprofit corporation that was set up in October 2023 called the East Hampton Village Ambulance Members, Inc.

A Suffolk County Supreme Court justice has dismissed a petition filed by Teresa Bertha on behalf of the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association that would have allowed Ms. Bertha to sue the village for taking over the association’s ambulance certificate and its bank account.

The East Hampton Village Ambulance Association, an independent nonprofit, petitioned the Suffolk County Supreme Court on Nov. 15 to ignore a statute of limitations that would prevent it from suing East Hampton Village for what the association alleges was a takeover of its ambulance service certificate and its bank account. 

Mayor Jerry Larsen and the East Hampton Village Board finally got what they wanted: control of the operations of the East Hampton Village Ambulance via a newly created Department of Emergency Medical Service that was voted into existence at Friday’s village board meeting.

A boisterous group of 40-plus ambulance volunteers, many from the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association but some "mutually aided" from nearby departments, showed up at the East Hampton Village Board meeting on Friday to speak out against a plan that would have the ambulance association come under village control.

Nearly a quarter of the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association’s volunteer corps has resigned since the East Hampton Village Board introduced a plan on March 2 to create a new Department of Emergency Medical Services to oversee the ambulance service.

Legislation introduced at last week’s East Hampton Village Board to create a standalone Ambulance Department “to provide a municipal paid and volunteer general ambulance service in the village and contracted-for areas of the Town of East Hampton” so alarmed a faction of the ambulance corps that it scheduled an emergency meeting. The law will be the subject of a public hearing on March 17.

East Hampton Village is seeking to formalize its relationship with the East Hampton Ambulance Association with code changes that could be implemented by January. It's unclear whether that would alter operation of the associaton, which has been run by its own bylaws for decades.

On Aug. 4, without naming the individual, East Hampton Village posted a press release announcing the 30-day suspension of a volunteer emergency medical services worker from the Village Ambulance Association after “hostile work environment” complaints filed against him were “found to be valid.” While the village may not have named him, by that point Randy Hoffman, the longtime critical-care E.M.T. who was told of his suspension the day before, had already named himself, sharing his side of the story and expressing his frustration with the decision.