Charlestown posts fire station committee meeting notice as planning continues

Will Charlestown’s fire plan lean toward repairs, a new site or another scaled-back option? That is the question hanging over a Selectboard and Fire Station Committee meeting notice posted for 6 p.m. at the Charlestown Fire Station, a brief posting that did not spell out an agenda but made clear the town’s public-safety planning was still moving.

The April 28 notice arrived as part of a longer committee process, not a one-off discussion. The town had already posted Fire Station Committee information on February 19, including a slide show, and its boards-and-commissions page said the committee meets every second and fourth Tuesday from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the fire station meeting room, with the public welcome. The committee’s listed members include Patrick Thompson as chair, Alan Putnam as co-chair, along with Joel Stoddard, James Bushway, Roger Thibodeau and Edward Carello.

What residents could not tell from the notice alone was whether the discussion involved building work, staffing, equipment, future capital costs or another operational issue. That ambiguity matters because the Charlestown Fire Department is not a dormant program. New Hampshire Fire History describes it as a call department that handles roughly 442 to 500 calls a year, serves a population of about 4,806 and operates from one station. In a small town with a single firehouse, even a modest change in scope or timing can affect response readiness, storage, staffing logistics and the pressure on the capital budget.

The committee’s work comes after a difficult stretch of townwide decisions on emergency services. On March 10, voters approved a $6.98 million operating budget by 456-396, but rejected a $269,000 land purchase for a future fire station by 641-232. They also turned down a petitioned article that would have raised $250,000 for a town-operated transport ambulance service, 559-313. In February, Fire Chief Jerry Beaudry resigned, citing ambulance-service problems and what he described as neglect by town officials; on March 5, the town said it had worked through recent issues with Golden Cross Ambulance and would renew the contract.

The meeting also followed a long-running station debate. In 2024, Charlestown had considered a $3.5 million bond for a new fire station, with the borrowing plan requiring 60 percent approval and calling for grants and other funding to reduce the amount needed. The shift from that larger proposal to the smaller land purchase rejected in March suggests the town has been trying to find a version of the project that can survive both taxpayer scrutiny and the practical demands of emergency response. For Charlestown, the fire station remains more than a building issue; it is a test of how much the town is willing to spend to keep its only station aligned with the calls it answers every day.