PUTNEY-What began as a quiet public notice and a series of poorly attended public meetings about a new ordinance to charge residents and visitors for fire and emergency services could end with the Selectboard reversing the decision.
Although the board has adopted the new ordinance, which gives it the authority to bill for emergency services, including fire department calls, Town Manager Karen Astley confirmed that the topic is on the agenda for the Wednesday, July 23 Selectboard meeting, and believes it is likely the policy will be scrapped, though she was careful to note that it is not her decision and she "cannot speak for the Selectboard."
"Once it's teased out further, or we update the old ordinance, it just has to be clearer to the public," said Astley.
Selectboard Clerk Fletcher Proctor, an attorney practicing in Vermont, first proposed the ordinance, which he drafted, at the board's May 14 meeting.
He said this issue had been "hovering, and we should have something on the books that if someone rolls their car over on the Interstate and we send emergency vehicles out, if there's a source of compensation - their insurance - we should pursue it."
He implored fellow board members to "get something off the ground here, because we're sending our people out and spending their time and expending town resources, and letting a perfectly clear, existing opportunity to get some reimbursement just drift by."
The adopted ordinance states a number of reasons for its need.
"[E]mergency and non-emergency response activity to incidents detrimental to public safety continues to increase each year," the text says.
The ordinance cites increasing requirements placed on the fire department by the federal Department of Homeland Security, Environmental Protection Agency, and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA). And "raising real property tax to meet the increase in service demands would be inequitable to property owners," the ordinance says.
Vocal opposition
The Selectboard must vote to adopt a new ordinance on two separate, properly warned occasions.
The board first unanimously voted to adopt the ordinance at its May 14 meeting, where it appeared under New Business.
In the June 17 edition of The Commons, a public notice announced a public hearing "to hear from the public" on the ordinance, which the Selectboard had already voted to adopt at its June 11 meeting.
The only member of the audience at the May 14 and June 11 Selectboard meetings to interrogate the board on the ordinance was resident Howard Fairman, who spoke at length.
Fairman's complaints, which also appeared in a Commons opinion piece ["Fire department billing ordinance raises a number of questions, Voices, June 17], centered on the town's emergency services already being paid for by property taxes, the purported reason for the ordinance, the precise language of the ordinance and what it actually empowers the town to do, the source of the rate schedule's figures, and whether the prospect of being billed for fire calls will overburden people during an already stressful time.
By the time the board held its second public hearing on July 9, Fairman was joined by four more vocal opponents, including the chair of the library's Board of Trustees and a former state senator.
No town official or employee at the May 14 board meeting or either of the public hearings shared evidence to justify the ordinance, including the number of Interstate 91 crashes to which the Fire Department responded, the cost of federal agencies' increasing requirements, or the cost of the highway calls.
The Commons was unable to reach a representative from the Putney Fire Department at press time.
According to public data from the Vermont State Police via the Vermont Agency of Transportation, the following motor vehicle accidents were reported on I-91 in Putney in the following years: 20 in 2020; 27 in 2021; 13 in 2022; 10 in 2023; 9 in 2024; and (as of July 11) 3 in 2025.
The data does not reflect whether the Putney Fire Department assisted on any of these incidents.
Billing on commission
Proctor noted that Selectboard Chair Eric McGowan had communicated with a representative from a firm that handles billing insurance companies for emergency services. This representative, said Proctor, wants "to see an ordinance that authorizes us to bill."
He recommended using this service because the town is not equipped to comply with the billing requirements of the vast multitude of insurance companies.
This company, Proctor said, charges a 23% fee for acting as the go-between for the town and the recipient's insurance company.
Will contracting with this company and adopting this ordinance, "entail this billing company simply collecting 23% and going after, as a collection agency, a person whose house has just burned down, for the cost of fighting the fire, which was covered by property taxes?" Fairman asked at the May 14 Board meeting.
"If the impetus for this is coming from a billing company looking for work, this is shameful," said Putney resident Jeanette White at the public hearing.
"We are better than to fall prey to that kind of soliciting," added White, a former state senator who serves on the Rescue Inc. board of trustees.
Selectboard member Aileen Tulloch assured White that this ordinance is "not a result of a billing company's solicitation," and it had been in the works "for a long time." She said the board had been using the information from this particular billing company "as an example," and the Selectboard is "not entering into a contract with them, and we'll probably go out to bid" for it when the time comes.
Town Manager Karen Astley supported Tulloch's statement in a conversation with The Commons. "We are not going to bill for every single call, because we don't have time for that. It's not fair to the public," said Astley, adding that "we're not here to make more money or find more revenue. That's not our purpose."
Astley said that she is also Putney's finance director, and she wants to see "all invoicing that goes through Town Hall."
White noted that the Putney Fire Department responded to two calls to her house over the winter, both for emergency medical services. Her insurance company, she said, "allows for $5,000 for cleanup after a fire. Nothing else."
The fee schedule indicates a $602 charge for every fire department call. White asked if she will now be billed $1,204 for those two calls.
To arrive at these charges, White referenced a fee schedule the Selectboard had issued as a policy attached to the ordinance, which she derided.
"The billing rates are not a policy," she said, noting that policies are guiding principles, according to the Vermont League of Cities & Towns. "There's no guiding principles here."
'It authorizes us to bill what we want'
One of Fairman's objections, discussed by the board at the three meetings, was exactly which calls would be covered in the ordinance. Will a resident whose house burned down have to pay?
The consensus among the Selectboard was that the fees were discretionary, that residents would not be charged every time, and that the fees would primarily cover the cost of cleaning up hazardous materials should town emergency personnel assist the Vermont State Police with motor vehicle crashes on I-91.
"Do we pick and choose who it covers?" Astley asked at the May 14 meeting.
"It covers everybody, every potential situation," Proctor responded, adding that the town can decide not to pursue reimbursement.
When Astley asked who would make that decision, Proctor told her it would be she and the Fire Department.
"Is there language in this draft [ordinance] that says that?" Astley asked.
"No," said Proctor, "but there's nothing in this ordinance that requires us to bill everything. It authorizes us to bill what we want. If there's a situation where we're not going to bill, I'd hope there'd be a conversation between the Fire Department and the Town Manager's Office."
White referenced this lack of clarity in her query before the Selectboard at the July 9 public hearing, specifically about the hypothetical of paying $1,204 for two calls to the Fire Department.
"Or, maybe, if I'm in good favor with the decision-maker, maybe I won't be [billed]. So who will make this determination?" White asked, noting the ordinance does not provide any information on enforcement and exemptions.
"I was kind of appalled when I heard about this ordinance," resident Mary Houghton said. "I feel like we're already paying for services through our taxes."
Resident Janice Baldwin said that at previous board meetings, this ordinance was presented as a response to, and a mechanism to bill for, accidents on the state highway, and "not so much for residents." But, she pointed out, "that's not spelled out in the ordinance."
Noting that a previous ordinance gave the Selectboard the ability to set rates and invoice for emergency services, a better solution, said White, would have been for the Selectboard to simply update the rate schedule.
"But you didn't," she said. "You chose to completely ignore the old ordinance and establish a new one that isn't an ordinance.
"You did not need to have a new ordinance," White said. "I would have been laughed out of the Senate if I had tried to pass a bill like this, that had the force of law behind it.
"It has no definitions. It has no enforcement. It has nothing," said White. "And it does not say, 'Only certain people will be billed.'"
Astley confirmed with The Commons that the old ordinance contains clear language for which calls are billable, and these are applicable for the entire town, not just on the Interstate. They are incidents that are malicious, a nuisance, or involve hazardous materials. They are motor vehicle accidents. In the case of fires, they are non-permitted burns, or permitted burns that, due to negligence, rage out of control; they are also wild land fires caused by negligence. They are special events, like a sports tournament or inspecting a tent for a party.
"There's definitions for all of this," in the old ordinance, said Astley.
"Did this [ordinance] pass muster with the town attorney?" White asked.
"It hasn't gone to the town attorney," said Astley.
"If I were in your shoes," Houghton said to the Selectboard, "I would want to start by consulting the town lawyer [...] before doing anything else."
White noted the ordinance itself is in violation of state statute. The ordinance indicates "this billing process will become effective 30 days after adoption," said White, but statute requires a 60-day notice. Tulloch conceded this error.
Fairman questioned whether the Selectboard even has the authority to enact such an ordinance.
The ordinance cites state law as giving the Selectboard the authority to establish and implement a "program to charge mitigation rates for the deployment of emergency and non-emergency services by the Fire Department."
But Fairman said the statute "actually applies to a proposed Planning amendment or bylaw appeal about the Town Plan," not an ordinance about billing for emergency services.
Thus, he said, "It is an invalid statutory authority."
Fairman noted that, as Vermont is a so-called "Dillon's Rule" state, local governments may only enact laws the state explicitly allows them to create. This ordinance, he said, does not cite any actual statute authorizing it to do so, because "there is no statute specifically authorizing the Town of Putney to charge mitigation rates."
A citizen's recourse, said Fairman, could go one of two ways. One would be to successfully submit a petition to the town requesting a Special Town Meeting where voters would ask the Selectboard to rescind the ordinance. Fairman has started this process, and he must get approximately 105 signatures on the petition.
The other recourse, Fairman said, is to sue the Town of Putney.
'I don't think we got it right'
Selectboard Vice Chair Peg Alden responded to the residents' objections and concerns and proposed a motion to have two Selectboard members review the new ordinance, discuss it with the town attorney and bring their recommendations to the Aug. 20 board meeting.
After Fairman called foul on a review session that would happen outside of open meeting, Alden conceded and withdrew her motion.
After some discussion among the board members, the board unanimously voted to place an item on the next meeting's agenda to discuss rescinding the ordinance.
"I don't think we got it right," said board member Rebecca "Bex" Slattery. "We've heard from a lot of people. I'd rather rescind it and start fresh."
The motion was unanimously approved by the board members present, minus Proctor, who did not attend that meeting.
At the end of the public hearing, Fairman offered a compliment.
"I would like to commend the Putney Selectboard," he said, "for conducting an excellent public hearing."
This News item by Wendy M. Levy was written for The Commons.