ANDOVER -The Andover Fire Department is coming under scrutiny once again.

Fire Chief Ken Dixon approached the Board of Selectmen on Tuesday asking if the department could spent some county money it received to help purchase equipment for the town’s new pumper that is soon to be delivered.

“I understand we need permission to spend these funds. There is no new equipment coming with that truck,” he said.

The town has billed the county per call in the past for fires that the department has fought in townships or unorganized territories. Resident Kevin Scott asked if selectmen negotiated the mutual aid contract.

“The fire chief negotiated that contract with the county commissioners, and the selectmen approved it,” Dixon responded.

Chairman Susan Merrow assured Dixon that the selectmen would look into the matter further at the next meeting Sept. 9.

Dixon grilled the board on mileage reimbursement, or lack thereof, for Emergency Management Agency meetings that he had been attending in Paris. There are four such meetings each year.

“It seems to be an issue,” Dixon pointed out, adding that if he didn’t get paid for mileage he wouldn’t be attending the meetings.

Merrow noted that there should be a place in the town report each year in which residents are enlightened as to the importance of Dixon’s presence at the EMA meetings.

“It was explained at town meeting,” Dixon countered.

“He doesn’t have any money and he needs to go,” emphasized Road Commissioner Marshall Meisner. He offered Dixon the use of the town truck to drive to the meetings if the fire chief would be willing to come to his house and pick it up.

Merrow discouraged this approach. “The people said no,” she said, pointing out that voters had cut money out of the budget for mileage reimbursement to meetings and other such events.

Dixon reminded selectmen that they will need to complete their IS 700 training course by the end of September or else the town would not be eligible for any Federal Emergency Management Agency money.

Resident Philip Milligan asked if the road department could shovel out snow from in front of town buildings such as the library on a volunteer basis, pointing out that the road crew had a snow shovel in one of its trucks. He expressed his frustration with cutbacks in the library’s budget, noting that the town’s children were the ones suffering from this.

“Now we’re cutting books that our kids could read because we don’t have the money to buy the books? What’s the story?” he asked.

“I’m not aware that we’re cutting books,” responded Selectman Trudy Akers.

Meisner noted that the road department has never shoveled the areas in front of town buildings because it has never been asked.

The cemetery fence is being sandblasted and will eventually be painted once the blasting is complete. Cemetery committee representative Richard Merrill informed the board that the work was going to cost considerably more than originally thought, and several options were being reviewed by the committee as to how it could be accomplished most feasibly.

There is $5,000 appropriated for the fence refurbishing. Merrill noted after the sandblasting was done, some more work would be needed to repair small holes before the fence could be painted.

“The fencing that is good enough to be done can be done within our budget this year,” he said. “It may take not doing as much as we thought we could do this year and appropriating more next year.”

The selectmen turned down a contract from Construction Caterers for work on the town office roof pending a better description of the bid specifications.

There have been problems with people driving too fast through town. “Slow down driving through town. There’s lots of kids,” Merrow said.

In other news, the selectmen will soon be appointing a representative to the River Valley Growth Council. Paula Smith is nearing the end of her two-year term and has expressed interest in serving again on the RVGC.

If anyone else is interested or would like to learn more about serving on the Growth Council, they need to let the selectmen know by next week’s meeting.