Firefighter

The issue of dock space for the Firefighter in Greenport was never about how people feel the fireboat, it was about turf and who controls that turf. 
Two or three self serving special interest individuals led by Trustee Mary Bess Phillips and Captain Sid Smith of the Merit do not want to cede to anyone outside their myopic circle control of what they perceive to be their dock.
No one (for the most part) in this Village believes their claim that the space the Firefighter occupies will ever be needed by some fantasy fishing fleet that is just over the horizon steaming its way to its new home in Greenport. 
No one in the village believes that the so called rejection by Suffolk County for the firefighter to rent space at that dock was anything other than a contrived plan by Trustee Phillips and a pandering misinformed county legislator Albert Krupski.
No one in the Village believes that the hypocritical Mayor who first invited the boat to come, could not have worked out a simple solution around the "sublease sign off requirement" demanded by the county by just simply issuing a dock permit where no county involvement is needed, instead he joined his crony and turned his back on his commitment.
No one, at least anyone willing to be honest believes the boat is in eminent danger of sinking (sink where, where it's berthed right now there is only a foot or so of water under the boat) or it would cause an "environmental nightmare" as some have also claimed. If those very vocal (but hypocritical) stewards of the environment were that concerned about preserving our pristine waters they would have raised a collective voice about the two boats underwater at the shipyard and the rusting derelict hulk Predator (owned by trustee Phillips) polluting Stirling Creek right now.
To be honest, maybe it's best the Firefighter does leave, because until the two fishermen and Trustee who are behind this effort to make public property private either sell their boats or leave town, they will make its stay here nothing but miserable, they will blame every mishap in town from potholes to power outages on the boat, and will never stop the effort to get that boat off "their dock".