PUTNEY — This Thursday, May 22, Putney will hold a Special Town Meeting to decide: Will the town continue with Rescue Inc. as its ambulance service, or contract with another provider?
I hope that Putney residents will attend this meeting and make their voices heard - again.
At Putney's Annual Town Meeting in March, voters debated the Selectboard's proposal to change ambulance services. After years of contracting with Rescue Inc., the board presented a budget with funding for Golden Cross Ambulance Service.
Claremont, N.H.–based Golden Cross, which already contracts with Westminster and other area towns, had offered its services for about $22,000 less than Rescue's bid.
After intense discussion, Putney voters decided to add money to the budget to retain Rescue's services, but after the meeting some voters circulated a petition to reconsider that vote.
This Thursday's meeting, at 6:30 p.m. in the Central School gym, will do just that. Voters can re-vote the town's budget, and a vote to subtract $22,000 will mean a change in ambulance services for the town.
The Putney Selectboard invited representatives from both Rescue and Golden Cross to make presentations at Town Meeting. While the president of Golden Cross said that he had been able to keep costs level for 10 years, the Rescue representative explained that the organization's costs had increased as it invested in training and in retaining its experienced staff.
To open discussion among the voters, I made a motion to add $22,000 to the town budget to retain Rescue as the town's ambulance provider. While both the Putney fire chief and a Brattleboro firefighter who lives in Putney said that Rescue and Golden Cross offered essentially the same service, three physicians had a different opinion.
One after another, Craig Goldberg, who works in the emergency room at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital; Burt Tepfer, a cardiologist; and Robert Nassau, a pediatrician, rose to speak.
All three recommended continuing the contract with Rescue. All three told the voters that Rescue's trained, experienced ambulance teams provide consistently expert care - and that in some cases that level of care can save lives.
Dr. Tepfer said that if he or a member of his family ever needed an ambulance, he would want it to be Rescue's.
The voters at Town Meeting listened, and voted to fund Rescue, Inc.
If you're a Putney voter, please plan to attend Thursday night's meeting to affirm or change that decision. No matter which way you vote, it's one vote that could directly affect you and your family.