The Alna fire department and board of selectmen plan to meet next week to draft a single compromise article on ownership and use of the firehouse and expansion both can live with.
The two parties made the decision Monday night at the regular selectmen’s meeting after the selectmen received a letter over the weekend from the fire department asking the board to reconsider the referendum and return to the meeting table with them.
At the same time selectmen decided to drop the planned referendum, cancel a public hearing scheduled for June 24 and hold the joint session sometime next week with both parties’ attorneys, since the fire department’s counsel, Atty. Elliot Field, is unavailable this week.
Originally the parties had decided to hold the meeting this week as a public hearing on two separate articles for a referendum vote to follow.
On Monday the board met in executive session with town counsel Paul Gibbons to see what the board should recommend. After coming out of executive session, the board decided to pull the referendum for now and cancel the Wednesday public hearing if the fire department would agree to meet with the selectmen and their respective attorneys.
Fire Dept. Association President Kathy Pendleton agreed to the meeting sometime next week when Field would possibly be available. At that time both parties plan to draft one article for an open town meeting rather than submitting two separate opposing articles for a referendum.
“Our goal is to come up with an article both the selectman and fire department can jointly recommend on the town warrant,” Second Selectman Tom Smith said after the meeting Monday. “We’re not trying to deny the town the right to vote on the issue, and we want as many as possible to be able to vote on it, secret and fair, so the people can vote their conscience.”
Selectmen also received a letter from Field calling for a special meeting with a notary public relative to the firehouse ownership debate. However, selectmen felt such a meeting would be illegal unless the board decided against putting the fire department’s article on the warrant within 60 days of the next town meeting, according to Selectman Tom Smith.
“Whatever came out of it wouldn’t be binding,” he said.
“The planned referendum would have occurred before a legal town meeting could be called by a notary public, but the fire department’s letters and response at the meeting suggest they are prepared to negotiate a compromise article rather than have opposing articles,” Smith said.
Field also questioned the town’s recent re-recording of the deed at Lincoln County Registry of Deeds, citing it as putting the department in a difficult situation.
Smith argued the re-recording was publicly known and reported in the news media before the fire department signed the contract for construction of the new addition voters approved at the March town meeting. He said the registry re-recorded it after a quick search, since the 1950 deed had a registry stamp on it indicating it had been recorded. However, the registry would have had to make a more extensive search to find the original record.
“I feel that if the fire department had concerns about ownership, they should have resolved them with us before signing the contract and starting construction,” he said.
Concrete has been poured for the construction and the structure has begun to take shape to provide the department-needed space to operate in compliance with state regulations and provide the town with adequate public meetings space.
