WOODSTOCK — Voters on Town Meeting Day approved a plan to borrow up to $4.5 million to renovate and expand Woodstock’s public safety building and also agreed to spend $593,000 in the coming year to pay and equip a full-time staff of emergency responders.
The building bond was approved on a 733-465 vote in all-day balloting on Tuesday.
Fire Chief David Green had said the town, which has a number of second homes and an aging population, is running out of volunteers to serve as EMTs and to staff ambulances.
The measure to strengthen the 24-hour ambulance service by adding six full-time staff members to the current two and also equipping them passed, 949-341.
The public-safety building project includes plans to renovate the existing facility on Route 4 and to add 5,000 square feet for vehicles and use by firefighters.
In contested races, Keri Cole defeated incumbent Ray Bourgeois for a three-year term on the Selectboard, 731-530.
Meanwhile, voters in the seven-town, Woodstock-area Windsor Central Unified Union School District approved a $21.78 million school budget on a 1,677-1,216 vote. An article to accept the Barnard School District into the broader district also passed easily in each town.