Cheshire Works to Obtain Borrowing for Fire Truck
CHESHIRE, Mass.—The Fire Department's new firetruck is ready, but the town can not pay for it.
During a special town meeting last year, voters approved the borrowing of $850,000 for the purchase of a new fire truck. However, the meeting was not properly posted, causing a delay in borrowing.
One of the borrowing requirements is that the town supply the posting of the special election but since it was not properly posted, the town can not provide that.
"The way around that is to have special legislation approved by the state of Massachusetts, to basically approve the special election," one member said.
Another option is to have another special election. However, it can not be held close to the annual election. There isn't time to add the article to the annual election, said Town Administrator Jennifer Morse.
State Rep. John Barrett III has been involved in this process for going on eight months and state Sen. Paul Mark is also involved to aid on the Senate side, Morse said.
The best path forward is getting the town meeting approval on the Legislature to make it an official meeting. It's just a matter of getting it on the docket, one board member said.
"There's a plethora of towns that have had similar situations, whether it's wording on a ballot or
not posting. It happens quite a bit. We're not reinventing the wheel. I mean, this has all been done before," one board member said.
The approval of the meeting has to go through the House and Senate. So Barrett and Mark are working together to try to push it, Morse said.
"It didn't get through the last session that ended on Dec. 31 for various reasons, so Barrett has refiled," she said.
"It's in front of the elections committee. Last I spoke to about Barrett, he's going to push and hopefully have it through by the end of April, and he said that he's really pushing hard. I have also involved [Senator Paul Mark] as well so he can push through on the Senate side."
The fire truck dealer is charging the town $220 per day for keeping the truck on its lot after the delivery date of April 1.
"So the more time that goes by, the meter keeps ticking," Fire Chief Thomas Francesconi said.
If the legislation can go through by the end of April, it will have cost the town $6,000, he said.
The town had originally expected to receive the truck by mid-January 2026. One board member inquired whether the board could ask the business to waive the $220 fee for one month while the town seeks funding, given that the delivery is arriving earlier than anticipated.
It was said the town had already tried this, and the business would not budge because if Cheshire didn't agree to take the fire truck, someone else would have.
The early delivery of the truck would have been a positive thing if the meeting was posted properly, Francesconi said.
"Whether it's 21 months or 12 months, we would have been fine if it had been posted and had gone through town meeting correctly, we would have been fine. That's all it is. It's a mistake. It's an error. So it doesn't matter if it was 21 months or 10 months or anything. We would have been fine," he said.
The new treasurer also reached out to the state Department of Revenue last week trying to do a State House note or something for this borrowing but that is not going to work without the legislation, Morse said.
"So, we have gone at this from every angle we could possibly think of," she said.
The special election was highly attended and publicized, and the borrowing for the truck was noncontroversial, passing by 100 votes, board members said.
"Barrett said he has spoken to the chair of the elections committee several times, and they promise that they're going to try to push it up as fast as they can," Morse said.
"There are 800 bills sitting in the elections. So that was the problem at the end of last year, because there's so many bills on December 31 they just didn't get to this one."
If the legislation doesn't pass by the end of the month the town has to determine next steps, board members said.
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