WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — It likely will require a special Fire District meeting if the Prudential Committee wants to move forward with a plan to expand its numbers within the calendar year.

 

At Wednesday's monthly meeting, the committee learned that there likely is no way to move forward with the change approved by voters in November in time for this year's annual election in May.

 

"I just got a text from Rep. [John] Barrett," Prudential Chair John Notsley told his colleagues. "The bill should be out of committee next week. Then it should be in the House for two weeks and then it goes to the Senate."

 

The decision by district voters to restructure governance of the Williamstown Fire District needs the blessing of the Legislature via a home rule petition sponsored by state Rep. John Barrett III, D-North Adams.

 

In order to increase representation on the three-member committee, its members asked voters whether it could grow to five members, a proposal that passed unanimously in a special meeting last fall.

 

But with nominations already underway for the May 28 district election — held just prior to the annual district meeting — it likely is too late to implement the changes.

 

"Technically, we missed the deadlines for this round," assistant treasurer Corydon Thurston told the committee. "It would be great if [the bill] comes out of the Legislature in May. … You could make some changes, but my recommendation is that once the approval comes through, we look at setting a special district election. Give it good publicity to encourage candidates for those slots and maybe look at a September special election."

 

Notsley noted that the district may be looking at a special election in the fall anyway in order to advance plans to build a new fire station on the former Lehovec property on Main Street (Route 2).

 

As part of that building project, the district has engaged New Hampshire's Municipal Resources Inc. to do a feasibility study.

 

Chief Craig Pedercini told the committee that representatives from MRI were scheduled to come to town on Thursday to interview district personnel and representatives of Town Hall and the Police Department.

 

The Fire District is a separate entity apart from town government with its own elections and taxing authority, unlike the Police Department, which is a department of town government.

 

The Fire District's budget will be up to a vote at the May 28 meeting, one week after the annual town meeting. On Wednesday, the Prudential Committee discussed whether it had any special funding priorities that it wanted to include in its request to voters.

 

At the moment, the district's fiscal 2019 expenses are tracking well with the budget put forward last spring. The big unknown, as it often is, is the line item for maintenance and operations. Pedercini said he is attempting to schedule inspection for the district's fire trucks, but vendor Five Star Fire of Hartford, Conn., is having trouble.

 

"They have a mechanic shortage with the on-the-road mechanics," Pedercini said. "Usually, they have two, but they're down to one. I'm trying to pin him down for the first or second week of April, but they can't promise us anything."

 

Pedercini said Five Star has offered to come pick up the district's trucks and bring them to Connecticut for servicing and return them at no extra charge.

 

The issue, Pedercini and the committee members agreed, is that such a plan would take the trucks out of service for a couple of days, factoring in the travel time and the inspection time.

 

"It's an option, but I'd rather get them up here and spend a week like they've been doing," Pedercini said.

 

In other business on Wednesday, Pedercini reported that the district responded to 31 fire calls in February; some of that number includes several calls to assist in managing wind damage during the Feb. 25 windstorm.

 

Also on Feb. 25, Williamstown firefighters were on scene of a blaze at Sweet Brook Farm that destroyed a barn and sugarhouse and kept the first responders on scene from about 9 p.m. until 5 a.m., Pedercini said. The chief told the committee that the state fire marshal had decided the cause of that fire was undetermined.