By Nicholas Brown
Staff Writer

The Hooksett Town Council voted to purchase an ambulance, after voters five months ago rejected a proposal for a town-run ambulance service.

The move to purchase didn’t sit well with everyone on the council at its Wednesday, Oct. 25, meeting.

“This is why people don’t like politicians,” said Jason Hyde, one of two councilors who opposed buying the ambulance. “They voted a certain way, and we just ran over them.”

Resident Vincent Lembo vehemently questioned the council’s 5-2 decision.

“You’re circumventing the voters again,” he said. “The council is sitting up here ­ five of you ­ and saying, ‘To hell with the voters. To hell with what they said.’”

Lembo was referring to a Town Meeting proposal calling for four paramedics to staff an ambulance purchased through impact fees. Voters narrowly nixed the plan.

Later, the council voted to purchase a “rescue vehicle” which could be turned into an ambulance at a later date. That plan died, said Town Administrator David Jodoin, because its difficult to update a “rescue vehicle” to meet ambulance, or “transport vehicle,” specs.

A previous letter from the state Department of Revenue Administration was noncommittal about whether the council had the authority to purchase an ambulance since the May vote, said Jodoin.

“I think the council felt they had to make the decision,” he said.

The recent vote came after Hooksett Fire Warden Harold Murray presented statistics of some October ambulance calls. He detailed a period of about a half hour on Wednesday, Oct. 18, when three emergency calls came in, and the town’s regular ambulance provider, Tri-Town Ambulance, was indisposed. Safety vehicles had to be called in from Manchester and Concord, he said.

Tri-Town, which has served Hooksett, Pembroke and Allenstown for more than three decades, has a memorandum of understanding with Hooksett by which the nonprofit company is to have one ambulance based at the Hooksett Safety Center during weekdays, while a second ambulance is stationed at the company’s Pembroke headquarters 24 hours a day.

Murray said one of the company’s ambulance hasn’t been running.

Laura Thibeault, executive director of Tri-Town’s board of directors, couldn’t be reached, despite multiple calls, before press time.

Murray said ambulance providers other than Tri-Town had to be called into Hooksett 10 times between Oct. 10 and Oct. 25, compared to a total of 50 requests for such outside help all of last year.

Murray suggested the council purchase an ambulance, to be paid for through impact fees, “strictly as a backup,” for such situations.

The council, members of which have previously shared personal stories in which they’ve perceived poor ambulance coverage from Tri-Town, voted 5-2 to purchase the ambulance.

Members of the public said they understand the council’s decision and called Murray’s argument compelling, but questioned why voters weren’t given more information about the town’s ambulance predicament before the May Town Meeting vote.

“You need to find a way to inform the public why you made the decisions you made,” said resident and Library Trustees Chairman Mary Farwell.

If not, Farwell forecasted, “There could be a backlash that’s going to hit the entire budget.”

Lembo said he spoke with Fire Chief Mike Williams for two hours prior to Town Meeting, hoping to understand why the town might need its own ambulance service.

He’s said he wouldn’t have voted ‘no’ if he’d had some of the information that’s come out since the vote.

Town Council Chairman George Longfellow said voters weren’t entirely alone.

“We had no information when this ambulance vote went up,” he said.

The town council initially placed the ambulance warrant article on the 2006 ballot, weeks after the vast majority of warrant articles were finalized, after suggestions from the budget committee that its members planned to petition for a town-run ambulance service.

Murray suggested a letter penned by the Tri-Town board of directors two days after Hooksett’s Town Meeting is critical to understanding the need to purchase an ambulance ­ which could take six months for delivery ­ now.

That letter, dated May 11, said, “We now have an adequate time frame to allow us to put together an efficient reorganization plan as we move forward and transition to a two-town service.”

That plan includes supporting the town in its efforts “to obtain funding” for a town-run service in the 2007-08 budget year, according to the letter.