2023 Vermont Statutes › Title 20 - Internal Security and Public Safety › Chapter 171 - Fire Districts › § 2481. Establishment; change of limits

§ 2481. Establishment; change of limits
(a) Upon application in writing of 20 or more freeholders or voters of a proposed fire district, the selectboard, after a duly warned public hearing, may establish such proposed fire district and define its limits. Such application shall contain a list of the powers mentioned in sections 2601 and 2603 of this title that the proposed district shall have and the district shall not have any of the other powers mentioned in these sections. Fire districts thus created shall be named by number in the order of their establishment. The selectboard shall file a certificate of its doings in the office of the town clerk for record. The selectboard may change the limits of a fire district upon a similar application and in like manner subject to the approval by the fire district at the annual or a special meeting of the fire district duly warned but any change in limits of a fire district may take place only with the consent of the majority of the landowners newly included within or excluded from those boundaries by that alteration. A record of any alteration of fire district boundaries shall be made by the town clerk. Only property contiguous to the fire district shall be the subject of an expansion of the boundaries of a fire district. For purposes of this subsection, a “public hearing” shall be a meeting of the legislative body of a town or of a fire district for the duly warned purpose of establishing or changing the limits of a fire district. Public notice for a public hearing required by this subsection shall be given not less than 15 days prior to the date of the public hearing by:
(1) the publication of the date, place, and purpose of the hearing in a newspaper of general circulation in the municipality affected; and
(2) the posting of the same information in one or more public places within the municipality.
(b) If a petition signed by five percent of the legal voters of the town objecting to the proposed establishment or change of limits of the fire district is presented to the town clerk within 30 days of the date of posting and publication of the notice required by subsection (a) of this section, the selectboard shall cause the question of whether the town shall establish or change the limits of the fire district to be considered at a special or annual meeting called for that purpose. After the meeting, the fire district shall be established or the limits changed unless a majority of the voters of the town present and voting vote to disapprove of such establishment or change of limits. If a petition signed by five percent of the legal voters of a town objecting to a selectboard decision denying the establishment or the change of limits of a fire district is presented to the town clerk within 30 days of the selectboard decision, the selectboard shall cause the question of whether the town shall establish or change the limits of the fire district to be considered at a special or annual meeting called for that purpose. (Amended 1993 No. 164 (Adj. Sess.) § 13; 2003, No. 93 (Adj. Sess.), § 1.)