To Mayor Ralph Kreitzman:
As you know, on April 5, 2011, the Vigilant volunteer fire fighters held a public meeting to discuss the controversy surrounding the funding of Vigilant’s emergency ambulance services provided to villages on the peninsula.
In your letter to this meeting, you indicated (as reported) that you are prepared to sign a new contract with Vigilant as soon as it is available.
Your position, arrived at after much consideration of alternative ways of recovering some of the costs of this vital service, is forthright, even bold, and should be implemented as soon as possible to put to rest any doubts that this vital service might be in jeopardy.
In the earlier discussions of cost recovery, as you note in your letter, the possibility of recovering costs through claims on insurance policies, for those covered by medical insurance, was explored. But this approach has turned out to be impractical.
Not discussed is the real possibility that once insurance companies find themselves absorbing larger losses from ambulance claims, they will raise insurance premiums. I think the best approach is the one expressed emphatically by the Honorable May Newburger, namely, “However you guys (Vigilant) want to keep it, that’s how I want to keep it.”
As the mayor of the largest village on the peninsula, and the village with the largest stake in making sure the service continues smoothly, your leadership role would, I believe, go a long way toward convincing any of the mayors who still harbor thoughts of deflecting the costs (which by any standard are not large) elsewhere, to sign up without further delay.
I urge you to contact Vigilant immediately, if you have not already done so.
Leon Korobow
Great Neck
