Alna voters return fire station to firefighters, Wiscasset Newspaper, July 23, 2009

Alna voters return fire station to firefighters

By SUSAN JOHNS

Staff Reporter

Alna residents decided last week to give the fire station back to the town’s volunteer fire department.

After a motion for a secret ballot was voted down during last week’s special town meeting, a show of hands ran widely in the fire department’s favor.

Of the 134 voters who gathered at the town’s 220-year-old meetinghouse, roughly two dozen raised their hands in opposition to the fire department’s proposed purchase of the station property for $1.

"I’m just very glad all the residents got to vote," Selectman Tom Smith said afterward. Smith had supported town ownership of the station.

"I’m glad it’s over, that the people have voted, and I’m glad it’s back in the rightful hands," fire department president Kathy Pendleton said of the issue, and the station on which it centered.

For more than three months, nearly all opinions publicly voiced on the issue had been those of selectmen and firefighters. Last Wednesday night’s meeting gave light to other residents’ feelings, not only on ownership, but on how selectmen and firefighters have handled the matter.

Several residents defended selectmen’s efforts.

"I think the selectmen are looking out for the town," Brittney Morgan said. Morgan and some others criticized lawn signs that appeared last week, disparaging selectman Tom Smith. "It actually bothered me to go down (Route) 218, in this beautiful town, and picturesque, and see the signs from good people, honorable people, saying Tom Smith is a liar."

"I don’t even know Tom," Judy Fossel said of Smith. "But I think he’s got courage and he’s got guts, and he’s out there doing something for us and we ought to appreciate it. We elected these people, and they are working for us, as far as I can see."

Some residents questioned why firefighters felt they needed to own the station. Selectman Smith cited insurance savings and control of the property as reasons for the town to keep ownership. "I have not yet heard why it is in the best interests of Alna residents to transfer that title," he said. Smith’s statement drew applause.

Fire Chief Mike Trask responded, "There’s a lot of pride in ownership. If they don’t have pride in the building, you might not have so much of a fire department," he said.

Others who spoke stressed the firefighters’ importance to the town. Paul Lazarus said that when he was a member of the department about 30 years ago, "We might have been able to save an outhouse. There was very little training," compared to that of today’s department, he suggested. "This department is about as close as you can get in this town to an actual fire department, and they may save my house or yours. We ought to give the fire department the firehouse, the land underneath, and call it good," he said.

"Then we can get down to fighting about things that really matter, like streetlights and alewives," Lazarus concluded, to residents’ laughter and applause.

Some who spoke in support of fire department ownership of the property criticized selectmen for actions those speakers felt ran contrary to the will of voters last spring. (A warrant article voters approved in March, to take out a $200,000 bank loan toward an addition to the station, indicated the department owned the station. A non-binding vote at the same meeting showed residents were not interested in a change in ownership or management. Selectmen later located – and took to the county registrar’s office - a 1950 deed, showing the town had bought the station from the department.)

"It started a war in this town, as you can see by this turnout," Ralph Hilton said of the ownership issue. "We have a lot more important things to worry about than that," such as the school budget and excise tax changes, he continued. "All this is doing is causing division in this town."

Numerous voters said they didn’t care who owns the station. Many expressed surprise over the heights the controversy has attained.

One man asked for a paper ballot vote. Selectwoman Billie Willard seconded the motion. When it was unclear if that automatically led to a secret ballot, moderator Chris Cooper read aloud the rule. It called for a vote on the secret ballot request. Voters in a show of hands rejected the idea.

After another show of hands determined the fire department was getting back the station property, voters still faced related articles that had been included on the warrant as options, depending on how the first vote went.

Residents officially "dismissed" an article with a fire station use agreement the firefighters had proposed, in the event that the town had kept ownership. Then they also dismissed an article selectmen had proposed, which would have kept town ownership and approved selectmen’s proposed use agreement.

Cooper informed the crowd that the board and the department would now work together on a use agreement. One man in the crowd commented that there was "no history" of the two parties being able to come up with one.

After the meeting, Pendleton gave selectmen a new, proposed use agreement.

In other, unrelated articles, voters agreed to raise and spend $71,543 to cover the town’s solid waste disposal bill from the Wiscasset Transfer Station. In a non-binding vote, they also directed selectmen to look into the possibility of contracting instead with the Jefferson-Nobleboro transfer station.

Voters agreed to spend $200 to increase the pay for the town’s emergency management director, from the $100 approved in March, to $300.

Voters also agreed to fund about $30,000 in repairs to the salt and sand shed. Former selectman John Green proposed forming a committee first, to look into "a long-term solution."

Trask, who serves as road commissioner, responded: "You’ve got to fix that problem and you’ve got to move faster than a committee. You get snow and ice up there and there is a possibility of it collapsing." The article passed, with some dissent.

Voters approved spending funds left in the Rabbit Path-Bailey Road Reconstruction Reserve Account, on about 1,000 feet of reconstruction work on Bailey Road.

Voters agreed to raise and spend $24,000, for the 2009 payment on the town’s $200,000 bank loan toward the fire station addition.

On a light note of the evening, Cooper’s usual comic relief efforts as moderator received impromptu help from animals, both wild and domestic: during the fire station ownership debate, Selectman David Seigars’ dog began barking in the center aisle, between the pew boxes. Cooper rapped his gavel repeatedly, and told the dog, "Stop it. Stop it. Get back in the box." The dog continued barking at Cooper.

Later in the meeting, Cooper informed the crowd that a weasel – which he noted was not a selectman, firefighter, or the planning board chairman, but "an actual weasel" – had entered the meetinghouse. He informed one side of the room that those people had nothing to worry about.