Pepperell Selectmen Vote to Call Special Town Meeting Over Ambulance Borrowing Error

PEPPERELL — November 14, 2011 — Pepperell selectmen authorize special town meeting to correct ambulance financing error. The two-member Board of Selectmen, meeting without Selectman Joseph Sergi, voted Monday to allow the town administrator to post a warrant for a special town meeting on November 29 after bond counsel and UniBank determined that motion language approved at the fall town meeting inadvertently restricted the town's authority to finance a new ambulance to a debt-exclusion-only scenario, contrary to what the board and voters had intended. The existing ambulance faces a February safety re-certification deadline that could cost $20,000 to $40,000 if not replaced in time. "It's legalese — you read through the thing five times and you think you understand it, but then when it comes to take the action, we found out that what we thought it said is not what we said," the town administrator told the board. The authorization was made contingent on town counsel's concurrence, expected by November 15. The board also appointed four members to the new Economic Development Advisory Committee — Keith Bagley, Walter J. Dreyer IV, Stephanie Cronin, and John Marciello — for one-year terms, appointed Leanne Coleman to the Recreation Commission, authorized up to $10,000 for Town Hall heating-control upgrades, and signed a Wild and Scenic River study endorsement letter, making Pepperell the last of nine Massachusetts towns to do so.