Fire and ambulance: one department or two?
Selectmen disagree over whether issue should make it to town meeting
By Karen Mann Journal Correspondent

What was scheduled to be a twenty-minute long discussion to finalize the warrant for the upcoming special town meeting, turned into an hour long heated conversation about the merging of the fire and ambulance departments.

One of the articles submitted by the fire department to selectmen proposed merging their department with the ambulance department. This idea was discussed at annual town meeting last spring, but did not receive support.

Board Chairman Robert Plamondon was upset Fire Chief William Donahue has had since last spring to rewrite the proposal, and according to Plamondon, has not submitted anything more credible.

Plamondon said he wanted to see a more serious, well thoughtout proposal.

For this reason, he said he could not support putting this article on the warrant for special town meeting.

Selectman Maureen Denig disagreed.

"It's up to the town voters who show up at town meeting to decide whether there is enough information," said Denig.

Denig said the report Plamondon was looking at was submitted on Oct. 15, and she has been told a more detailed report was being worked on. She wanted to give the fire and ambulance departments the chance to bring the new report to town meeting.

Denig also said she supports any merging of departments that saves money.

Plamondon argued that the proposal lacks complete information about savings. In it, Donahue states the department could save $240,00 because they would not need two additional staff members. Plamondon believes this isn't saving money, because it adds the $240,000 to the budget then takes it away. He said the report also does not address the fact the town is running the Advanced Life Support service with a $200,000 deficit.

Donahue said one major issue the merger would address is the fact the departments are staffed lightly during the day.

"By merging the two departments, I could roll out one fire truck fully staffed," said Donahue.

Denig reminded Plamondon that Donahue was hired with the intention he would work on merging the two services together.

Plamondon said he still had a lot of questions about the savings, and did not think the article was ready to be presented to voters.

Because Selectman David Chenelle was absent from the meeting due to an injury, the vote on whether to put this article on the warrant was tied 1-1. Town Administrator Greg Barnes said that makes the vote automatically go to the negative.

The issue did not end there though. About 30 minutes later, after selectmen had started discussing other items on the agenda, Chenelle walked into the meeting. The room also filled with over 10 members of the fire and ambulance departments, who showed silent but strong support for Donahue.

Chenelle agreed that the report addressing the merge needed to be more detailed, but said he wanted to give the department more time to work on it. Since the final draft of the warrant was being voted on Thursday (after press time), Chenelle said the fire department could have until then to submit a new report.

Donahue told selectmen he had met with the finance committee earlier that day, and understood what additional information needed to be included. He said he would submit an updated report by Thursday.

Selectmen told Barnes to draft two copies of the warrant, one that included the merge article and one that didn't. They would vote on which copy to sign Thursday night after press time.