A feud over ownership of the Alna firehouse flared up again Monday, but both sides foresee an ending at a special town meeting next Wed., July 15.
During the regular meeting of Alna selectmen Monday night, five fire department members attended to voice their dissent about a firehouse lease agreement the board offered in hopes of forestalling a vote to turn the facility back to the fire department.
However, the plan backfired.
Now the matter will still go to the voters at a special town meeting containing three warrant articles on the issue, two of which pertain to ownership of the property, plus a board article recommending a lease, along with seven articles on other town issues.
Before adjourning Monday, the board voted to put the original article the fire department petitioned on the warrant, which the department representatives approved.
After adjournment, First Selectman Billie Willard spoke about a meeting the board had with attorney Paul Gibbons, and fire department members and their attorney, Eliot Field, to hammer out a lease agreement between the two parties.
“It went very well,” Willard said. “It was everything to their benefit but they changed their minds. They picked out some parts they thought they would disapprove of.”
Willard said the four-page lease agreement the fire department received was a draft and only a draft, and expressed how puzzled she was the fire department voted against it at their emergency meeting on Monday before going before the board.
However, assistant fire chief Roger Whitney gave his interpretation of the fire department’s decision against the lease agreement, saying there were many things the fire department could not live with and had too many problems they could foresee.
“We felt offended by it,” he said.
Whitney expressed surprise in that the document was nothing like they felt they had agreed to during last week’s session with the lawyers.
The terms of the lease made the fire department’s use of the building conditional on the department’s performance, which members found offensive and so showed their discontent by their vote and comments at the board meeting.
The board recently re-recorded a 1950 deed it found that is stamped indicating it had been recorded with the Lincoln County Registry of Deeds. In a quick search, the registry did not locate the record but said an in-depth search would have to be done. The board however, did not do it, in light of the stamps on the deed.
The board went ahead and re-recorded the deed before informing the fire department. Fire department officials responded negatively to the action, citing the department had already gone ahead with construction of the addition, having understood it has been the firehouse owner for years.
The action raised the ire of fire department members who asked why the board did that before consulting with them.
According to Willard, the town bought the land in 1949 from the then volunteer fire department for $300, saying the price was way over what an acre of property was going for then, especially since the parcel was pie-shaped and less than an acre.
Willard said the fire department had not yet built anything on the land in 1949. The department built the present facility in 1983 after finding an earlier deed indicating the fire department’s ownership of it.
Whitney expressed confidence the town’s voters would go along with the fire department’s purchase of the property because of the overwhelming town meeting vote in March to give the department a go-ahead for its proposed expansion and updating of the firehouse on Rt. 27.
The first article dealing with the firehouse ownership issue, Article 9, asks the voters whether the town will sell the land and building to the town for one dollar. A ‘yes’ vote will make the next two articles moot, one being the fire department article, and the other being the board’s article.
Article 12 concerns a lease, of which the fire department petitioned, in case the town votes ‘no’ on Article 9. If the town votes ‘yes’ on article 10, then article 11 becomes moot.
However, if the town votes ‘no’ on both articles, then Article 11 could pass, which Willard said would give the town more say about the facility than the other two articles.
“If the town votes ‘no’ on all three, then I guess we’ll have to go back to the drawing board,” she said.
The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. next Wed., July 15 at the Alna Meetinghouse on Rt. 27 beginning with the election of a moderator. She said voters can read the warrant at the U.S. Post Office, The Alna Store, the town office in the entryway, at the firehouse or online at the website or emailed to various citizens.
Willard said she would like to see as many voters as possible attend the special session.