On Oct. 9, 2024, the Village of Albion Board of Trustees opened its only public hearing on abolishing the village's own fire department at 6 p.m. and closed it at 6:02 p.m., according to the minutes, with no comment recorded from anyone in the room. Five days later, trustees Greg Bennett and Tim McMurray moved and seconded Resolution 2024-27, adopted Oct. 14, invoking Village Law Section 10-1020 to abolish the Village of Albion Fire Department effective Dec. 31, 2024, at 11:59 p.m. It was the last formal step in a process that had run, on and off, for nearly two years -- one that replaced a village department with a brand-new three-government fire district, and left a building, a truck loan and a roof loan to be sorted out along the way. The idea appears in the minutes as early as August 2023, when Fire Chief Jeremy Graham told the board a triple-net lease of the fire hall to a proposed joint district remained undecided, with an early discussed commissioner split of three seats for the Town of Albion and two for the Town of Gaines. The plan took formal shape on Feb. 28, 2024, when trustees adopted Resolution 2024-12, citing Town Law Section 189-a, to call a joint meeting of the Village of Albion, Town of Albion and Town of Gaines on establishing the Albion Joint Fire District, or AJFD, meant to absorb what had been separate Albion and Gaines fire protection districts. That joint meeting was held March 27, 2024, at Gaines Town Hall, called to order by Attorney Douglas Heath. Officials from all three governments approved the AJFD proposal, but only after changing one term in the draft agreement: according to the minutes, the recommended lease was modified to zero rent for five years, with the district covering all of the building's operating costs. The village board's vote carried 3-0, with trustees Chris Barry and Tim McMurray absent. The same meeting set an April 24, 2024, public hearing on the formation, to be held at Albion High School's Large Group Instruction, or LGI, room. Petitions calling for a public vote followed the hearing, and on Aug. 6, 2024, voters in Gaines and Albion approved forming the AJFD in a special election, according to a resolution the village board later adopted reciting that history. The district was established Aug. 12, 2024. The village had already designated, on July 24, Trustee David Buczek as its sole appointee to what would become a five-member board of fire commissioners, with the Town of Albion and Town of Gaines each choosing two more; the five held their first organizational meeting Aug. 20, 2024, setting the district's budget process under state law. With AJFD running, the village turned to closing out its own department. Trustees scheduled the Oct. 9 dissolution hearing at a Sept. 27 special meeting, and the two-minute, comment-free hearing led directly to the Oct. 14 resolution. That resolution's language limited what the village handed over: it directed that the department's money and apparatus, described as property "free and clear of any lien that the Village of Albion has signed as an obligor," be transferred to AJFD's board of commissioners within 10 days of notice. What the minutes don't say is what becomes of property that wasn't lien-free -- a live question, since less than a year earlier the board had reviewed a table headed "FIRE DEPARTMENT OUTSTANDING DEBT" showing $70,000.00 in principal and $3,262.50 in interest due in 2025 on a fire truck, another $75,000.00 in principal and $1,687.50 in interest due on it in 2026, and $60,000.00 in principal and $1,380.00 in interest due in 2025 on a roof replacement. No later minutes in the record identify which government ended up carrying that debt. The building itself outlasted the zero-rent term floated in March 2024. On Sept. 25, 2024, trustees Joyce Riley and William Gabalski moved to offer AJFD a triple-net lease instead, for two years with an option to extend up to 10, at the department's building at 108 S Platt St., making the district responsible for 50% of roof repairs, 33% of generator repairs and 50% of chimney repairs, and requiring it to carry renter's and liability insurance naming the village. Trustees approved a finalized lease agreement with AJFD on Nov. 13, 2024, unanimously among the four members present, without the minutes restating its terms. A month later, on Dec. 11, the board took up a resolution reciting that the village's separate fire-protection service contracts with the Town of Albion, running since 2022 and due to expire in 2026, and the Town of Gaines, running since 2023 and due to expire in 2027, were no longer needed now that AJFD covered the same ground; the excerpt does not include the resolution's final adopted text or a roll-call vote. The arrangement kept generating business between the two governments well after the department's legal end. On Feb. 26, 2025, the village authorized its public-works crew to declare eight surplus 4,500-pound air bottles that had been sitting at the fire department. On April 14, 2025, the board declined to separate the fire department's electric meter and generator, which also serve the village clerk's office and police department, because the village could not afford to buy two replacement generators. By Dec. 17, 2025, minutes record Trustee Joyce Riley, Superintendent of Public Works James Pahura and Attorney Gavenda planning to meet with AJFD members "to hear their concerns regarding the parking spaces and lease agreement with the Village." The most recent meeting in the record, a May 27, 2026, workshop agenda, lists "Fire Department requests" under Trustee Sheehan as a discussion item, with no further detail -- leaving open, as of the last entry available, whether the parking and lease questions raised five months earlier were settled.