Photo: The Berkshire Eagle. Used with permission.

Editor's note: Most of our readers are familiar with the issues between our Town's Select Board and the Sandisfield Fire Department, Inc. (SFDI). The issues have been detailed in articles in The Berkshire Eagle, an Eagle editorial, and in the last two months of The Times. The latter can be found online at sandisfieldtimes.org/library or paper copies at the Sandisfield Library. What follows here are events of the last month: the beginning negotiations between the two parties, changes at the fire stations and in emergency responses, the Town's letter disassociating itself from the SFDI, and accusations and lawsuits.

Negotiation Meeting #1

Papers changed hands at the meeting between the Select Board and SFDI (Sandisfield Fire Department, Inc.) on August 27, but little negotiation.

The meeting was proposed by the Select Board May 27 soon after the Annual Town Meeting. Both sides have blamed the other for the delay. About 30 residents attended in person, with another dozen or more on Zoom.

The first item of business was to "Discuss SFDI's Option to Gift the Fire Stations to the Town of Sandisfield," which was the preferred choice at the ATM. The reply from former Fire Chief, Ralph Morrison, the president of SFDI, was, "Not at this time." Asked for a time frame, Morrison said, "Our board has talked about it and made no decision yet."

The second agenda item was the lease agreement for the fire stations between the Town and SFDI. The lease terminates at the end of June 2026.

On request, the Select Board read aloud a few of the lease changes proposed by SFDI.

One change was for a 5-year lease, beginning now, at $20,000 per year with a 10 percent increase per year. Asked why the rent request had doubled from $10,000, the reply was "the money the Town is paying now doesn't cover the building insurance we have to pay." The Select Board asked to see the documents. "We might be able to provide them," said Morrison. Asked to explain SFDI's overhead expenses for the buildings, he said, "I didn't bring the list with me."

Moving on to SFDI's inclusion of an office for the Fire Chief at Station #1, the Select Board replied, "Why can't the Chief use the room upstairs at Station #2? It is currently locked and unused and is designated as an office. The Fire Chief needs an office that is more than a cubbyhole in the back of Station #1." There was no clear reply.

The Board was asked if they had a counter-proposal. The answer was yes but in an oversight the Board had not provided copies for SFDI. Selectman John Field gave Morrison his own copy of the short list. The oversight drew criticism from an audience member who felt it was unprofessional behavior not to have printed copies.

The Board's counter-proposal accepted the 5-year lease and the $20,000 rent but without the yearly increases. It also included a provision that at the end of the lease the buildings revert to the Town.

Morrison said, "Write the counter-proposal up and send it to me."

Agreeing that a future meeting was necessary, the Board suggested setting a date since it had taken three months for this meeting to be held. The SFDI president said, "We can't set a date now, I don't have my calendar."

Asked why it took so long for this meeting to happen, SFDI's reply was "It took a while to get people together."

Better News: Progress at the Fire House

"We are here," said Fire Chief Mike Grillo. "When the sun's out, we keep the doors open. Stop by. We'd like people to see what we've done with the place. Come in and see what's going on."

Grillo added, "The firehouse is staffed full time. There is someone at the station every day, every hour."

Having been in charge only about 100 days, Grillo and his small team per diem firefighters and EMTs have made a welcoming venue out of Fire Station #2. Town residents have stopped by with groceries, snacks, water, cold drinks.

Grillo hopes that his community-based approach to running a firehouse will resonate with Sandisfield. "The Council on Aging made up a basket of stuff," he said. "Because of their generosity, we have snacks we can hand out. Last weekend, one couple came by with a cooked chicken and potato salad. We've had kids visiting the firehouse, playing around the trucks."

He has a team of about ten per diem firefighters and EMTs, with a couple paramedics on board. He hopes to have about twenty-five to be fully staffed. With per diem staff, Grillo said, the Fire Department can guarantee coverage 24 hours a day. "We've answered 100 percent of our calls. Response time is usually less than six minutes. We've had as low as two minutes."

During their shifts, when not on a call, the firefighters work at maintaining the firehouse, getting vehicle inspections up to date, keeping the trucks in order, and conducting training sessions with a new class of local volunteer firefighters.

"At least nine people have expressed interest," Grillo said, "and three are really serious." One of the new volunteers, Town Clerk Douglas Miner, is currently a student at the Litchfield Fire Academy in Torrington. He will finish his training in December and become a fully licensed Massachusetts firefighter.

Emergency calls are mostly automobile accidents, chimney fires, smoke problems. "We've had discussions with other fire departments about the opportunities for Sandisfield to offer mutual aid. We did provide mutual aid for Monterey on an emergency this month. We want to be there for them much as they are here for us."

Grillo said that Deputy Chief Chris Colonair worked with 911 response people to significantly decrease paramedic response time. "Before," Chris said, "a paramedic was not dispatched until we were on the site of the emergency and could assess that one was needed. Now we assess on the phone and a para can be dispatched sooner. Sometimes the para can arrive even before we do."

Town Disassociates from SFDI

In the following letter of August 4, the Town disassociated from the Sandisfield Fire Department, Inc. The letter reads in part:

"Re: Notification of Disassociation and Cease & Desist "Dear Sirs: "For years, the Town of Sandisfield's Fire Department has enjoyed a collaborative relationship with the Sandisfield Fire Department, Inc. ("the Corporation") whereby the Corporation has provided assistance to the Town to provide emergency fire and medical services and disaster relief to residents of the Town of Sandisfield and neighboring communities. "In recent months, however, it has become increasingly apparent that the Corporation's mission has changed from one of assisting the Town in providing fire and medical services to Sandisfield, to that of conspiring to undermine the Fire Department; most recently exhibited by the objectionable comments offered by the Corporation's President, Mr. Ralph Morrison, where Mr. Morrison encouraged a member of the Department and an employee of the Town to withhold emergency fire and medical services and where Mr. Morrison and the member conspired to coordinate Mr. Morrison's unauthorized access to software used by the Department. Mr. Morrison's conduct follows the Town's hiring of the new Fire Chief, Mr. Michael Grillo, who now serves in the position that Mr. Morrison resigned from after his misconduct came to light. "Given the pattern of conduct of members of the Corporation, especially those of Mr. Morrison, all of which runs counter to the mission of public safety to the residents of the Town, the Town is sending this letter to advise that, effective immediately, other than the leased use of the fire stations, the relationship between the Town and the Corporation is hereby terminated." . . .

The letter, which continued for another page, was signed by the Select Board, the Fire Chief, and the Town Manager.

Accusations and Lawsuits The following excerpt from The Berkshire Eagle provides a summary of the accusations and lawsuits. It can be accessed in full at www.theberkshireeagle.org/buttdial.

'Butt dial' at center of lawsuit between former Sandisfield fire chief Ralph Morrison and town officials By Jane Kaufman, The Berkshire Eagle, August 13, 2025. (Reprinted with permission.) SANDISFIELD - A dispute over a secretly recorded - and possibly accidental - phone call has erupted into a lawsuit pitting the town's former fire chief and town officials against each other in a battle over privacy, reputation and control of the local fire department. Ralph Morrison and Ricardo "Rico" Sanchez have filed a lawsuit against the town's newest fire chief, Michael Grillo, along with each of the Select Board members, and resident Carl Nett, who is one of two moderators appointed by the administrator of Connect Sandisfield, a Facebook group. The lawsuit, filed Aug. 4 in Berkshire Superior Court, seeks compensatory, statutory and punitive damages "against both town officials and private citizens who either secretly recorded or knowingly disseminated a recording of a private conversation." But new information about how the recording was made and later shared with the plaintiffs may call into question the legality of the claim, according to a legal expert. At a July 14 Sandisfield Select Board meeting, a recording of a conversation between Ralph Morrison and Ricardo "Rico" Sanchez was played. Morrison and Sanchez have filed a lawsuit against town officials over the recording, which they say was obtained illegally. The lawsuit stems from the playing of an audio recording of a conversation between Morrison and Sanchez. Grillo played the recording at a Sandisfield Select Board meeting on July 14. Neither Morrison nor Sanchez knew the recording was being made of their conversation at Morrison's business on July 7, according to the lawsuit. The conversation revolved around Grillo and the Sandisfield Fire Department. Nett published the transcript of the audio recording on Connect Sandisfield, where it garnered more than 140 comments and was subsequently shared seven times, according to the lawsuit. Michael Grillo said he and the Sandisfield Fire Department were being undermined at the July 14 Select Board meeting. On Tuesday, Grillo told The Eagle how the recording was made. It was a "butt dial," or accidental call, according to Grillo. "Ralph recorded himself and sent a voicemail to somebody, and when that voicemail was heard, that's when the individual came forward," Grillo said. "If anything, Rico [Sanchez] has a claim against Ralph [Morrison] for recording him without his permission." When Grillo introduced the recording at the public meeting on July 14, he accused Ralph Morrison and his brother, Michael Morrison, the town's police chief, of attempting to sabotage the Sandisfield Fire Department.

Massachusetts has two-party consent for recordings, which Sanchez pointed out just before Grillo played the recording on July 14. But a "butt dial," or accidental call, that went directly to voicemail may not count as an intercepting device, according to Jeff Pyle, a media lawyer at Prince Lobel Tye, and therefore may not fall under the Massachusetts wiretap statute.

"If it was a butt dial to another person who happens to subscribe to a phone service and went to voicemail, then that person didn't use an intercepting device, as defined by the statute," Pyle said. "They just had their phone. That would mean that the recording was not illegally intercepted in violation of the wiretap statute, so it wouldn't be a crime to use the recording." . . .

See next month's Sandisfield Times for what happens next.

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Published September 1, 2025