I know, how about the town pays me $280,800/yr to stand on Fishers Island and relay any 911 calls with my cell phone. That 10% reduction will save us $31,200 a year!

This is outrageous. Suffolk County’s IT department should disconnect 911 for Fishers Island until an affordable technology is implemented.

Someone should FOIL for the costs since Southold Town set this system up.
When and why did the costs skyrocket?
Was there any notice other than increasing bills?
AT&T should be sued to reimburse taxpayers.

To Benjamin Schwartz -- The costs may be outrageous but your proposal is even more outrageous. Attmitedly there should be a better solution but what if you were one of those 300 residents and you broke a leg or had a heart attack? Would you be willing to forgo 911 service in that case.
Instead of finger pointing and Fooling to set the blame how about some problem solving. First we should thank the Suffolk IT person for unearthing this issue and for being willing to follow through. Once they solve the problem there will be plenty of time for your Fooling and law suiting.

I really hate the auto text feature on my Android phone.. it changed FOILing to fooling. Another case of failed technology. LOL

Calm Down now.

In fact 911 is not available everywhere. It would be absurd to spend whatever it takes. Southold Town and Suffolk County implemented 911 when it became practical and affordable. As long as Suffolk County’s IT department continues to pay AT&T $26,000 per month, the efforts to find and implement an affordable solution will be retarded.

I don't know why it costs so much. I myself would be willing to live out of 911 range rather than contribute to economic instability of County Government.

so heres a start benja disconnect the phone line coming into your house and shut off the service to your cell phone if you have one, that will save a lil bit for the town on the mainland and send them smoke signals when you need help

I THINK YOUR "SMART PHONE" IS TRULY SMART - FOOILNG IS PROBABLY MORE ACCURATE A DESCRIPTION OF FOILING ANYWAY---- PEOPLE ELECTED TO LIVE ON FISHERS, JUST LIKE PEOPLE ELECTED TO LIVE ON THE BEACH LET THEM ELECT TO HAVE / HAVE NOT 911 IF YES CHARGE THEM ....

Thank you Suffolk Co IT. With 1.5 million Suffolk County residents now aware that the meter is running at close to $1,000 per day to provide 911 to approximately 175 household landlines, while all others are significantly under-served for major disaster resources, this is not a trivial matter, and represents a poorly considered budget allocation that cannot be ignored.

The East End population swells to double or more during the summer, and mostly with folks using mobile only devices, not landlines. Numbers of residents that still have a hard wired landline are reducing. All of this represents challenges that are particular to the east end, not only Fishers Island, and what's needed here, as a matter of public safety, is a proper evaluation of how new technology could be better integrated into all our emergency operations, including Fishers Island 911.

I'd be very surprised if Radio Operators weren't already available on F.I., but to rely on that exclusively could be perceived as a step down, when clearly a step up is what's needed, including options for mobile phone apps, other phone providers etc.
Telecommunications are light years beyond the 90s when the current contract was negotiated. Why is the privately owned Fishers Island Utility Company operating a public phone service? Is ATT the only network partner?

NYC just added GPS to 1,500 trucks/plows to better coordinate storms. It would be good to get our trucks/plows done as well.

I don't know the facts but often "IT costs" are allocated as opposed to actual. By allocated I mean an IT department takes their total costs and then using some type of metric (such as the number of users, a specific group of usres, etc.) allocates a percent of total IT costs to specific functions such as telephone costs, server costs or storage costs. Sometimes, an IT department decides it wants to be a profit center as opposed to a cost center and uplifts the actual costs to show a profit. It would be good to know if this $26,000 costs is an allocated costs or actual costs because the actual cost may be much lower. Perhaps, Fishers Island gets an allocated cost and if this is the case then maybe to cost allocation method needs to be fixed as the actual service charges may be much lower ? We need a data driven report showing how much AT&T is actually billing and what uplifts, if any, the Southold IT department may be putting on the bill.