WATERVILLE — The City Council is expected Tuesday to consider two major votes: Whether to override Mayor Nick Isgro’s veto of a council decision to buy two used ambulances, and to choose three more members for the city’s landmark charter commission.

The meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. in the Chace Community Forum at the Bill & Joan Alfond Main Street Commons at 150 Main St.

The council has twice voted to postpone deciding on whether to override Isgro’s veto of the ambulance purchases, asking for more time to explore the issue.

Councilors voted 6-0 on Oct. 15 to buy two used ambulances for $131,000 with an eye toward enabling the city’s Fire Department to transport patients to hospitals. Isgro vetoed that action three days later.

Councilors Mike Morris, D-Ward 1, and Jay Coelho, D-Ward 5, are members of the Fire Department Study Committee and recommended the city buy the ambulances. The city is not licensed to take patients to hospitals, but Delta Ambulance is authorized to do so and has a paramedic on every ambulance.

Meanwhile, Delta last week announced it proposes to provide the city with a state-licensed ambulance to be used by the fire department to transport patients if Delta is delayed. Delta proposes to maintain the ambulance.

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Tim Beals, Delta’s executive director, was to have met last week with Fire Chief Shawn Esler to discuss the matter, and Esler planned to meet with the study committee Monday, with the hope the committee would be prepared to make a recommendation to the council Tuesday.

Also Tuesday, councilors are scheduled to consider forming a homelessness task force and making an amendment to the city’s property maintenance ordinance.

In other matters Tuesday, the council is expected to consider appointing three of 17 candidates to the city’s charter commission.

Voters on Nov. 5 approved a ballot question asking if a charter commission should be established for the purpose of revising the city charter or establishing a new city charter. The vote was 1,150 to 623. Voters in each ward also elected charter commission members to represent their wards.

The City Council is responsible for appointing three additional commission members and no more than one can come from the council itself, according to City Solicitor William A. Lee III. The other two are not required to live in Waterville, he said.

Waterville voters are asked every seven years, as required by the charter, whether a charter commission shall be established for the purpose of revising the city charter or establishing a new charter.

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The commission is obligated to review the current charter, which serves as a local constitution that governs how the city operates. The commission also receives input from the public.

Its mission is to review the charter and to make recommendations as to what changes, if any, should be made in the charter, according to Lee. He said there is no legal requirement that there be any changes, or that there be any substantive changes.

Seventeen people sent letters to City Clerk Patti Dubois, expressing interest in serving on the commission, and councilors are expected to choose three Tuesday by written ballot. Two candidates, Isgro and Neal Patterson, were defeated in their bids for seats on the charter commission at the Nov. 5 election.

Besides Isgro and Patterson, a retired senior systems analyst at Colby College, those who submitted letters to the city seeking to be appointed are: Planning Board member Samantha Burdick; Councilor Jay Coelho; former Councilor and charter commission member Roland Hallee; lawyer James Laliberty; lawyer Tom Nale Jr.; Kristen Price, who formerly worked in real estate; Claire Prontnicki, retired from 27 years working at Colby; Planning Board member Chris Rancourt; Paula Raymond, adult education teacher; Steven Rossignol, a hairstylist at People’s Salon & Spa; Willis Smedberg, former educator and businessman; former Council Chairman Steve Soule; Ryan D. Tibbetts, employee of Pine State Trading Co.; Grace Von Tobel, retired from Colby; and Andy Wallis, staff software engineer at Leidos.

In the race for Charter Commission on Nov. 5, Ward 4 resident Hilary Koch defeated Isgro 289-147. In Ward 2, Councilor Phil Bofia defeated Maureen Lynn Ausbrook and John Robertson. Bofia received 102 votes to Ausbrook’s 95 and Robertson’s 41.

In Ward 3, Lutie Janet Brown, 19, defeated Robert Neal Patterson 156-51. In Ward 6, R. Arthur Finch defeated Thomas S. DePres 119-67. And in Ward 7, Ronald A. Merrill defeated Robert J. Vear 75-63.

Ward 1 resident Catherine Weeks and Ward 5 resident Julian Payne ran unopposed in their wards for the charter commission and were elected.


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