LYME — In a unanimous voice vote at Tuesday’s Town Meeting, Lyme residents approved the town’s operating budget of roughly $3 million, which includes an additional $20,550 to pay for highway winter materials and ambulance services.

Selectboard Chairwoman Judith Brotman proposed the amendment that added $15,550 to the highway winter materials budget and $5,000 to the ambulance budget.

Highway winter materials such as sand are being used rapidly, Brotman said a crowd of about 100 people at the Lyme School gymnasium.

The $15,550 would buy an additional 1,000 yards of sand for Lyme roads. Putting more money into the ambulance budget was needed to account for an increase to the contracts with Hanover and Lebanon.

Voters also approved spending $417,705 to purchase two new highway department vehicles.

The money will come out town reserve funds.

The trucks would replace two older vehicles, said Road Agent Scott Bailey, who confirmed that the old trucks would be sold to help pay for the new ones.

Resident Kathy Green was skeptical about the cost of the two trucks.

“I buy trucks all the time, so I’m just wondering if there’s a government discount, or if we should shop around for this thing?” she said.

Bailey confirmed that government discounts would be applied.

Voters also gave the OK to pull $85,000 from a capital reserve fund to buy a new police vehicle.

The vehicle will cost $52,000, while the rest of the funds will go to outfitting it, said Lyme Police Department Chief Shaun O’Keefe, who recently announced his retirement and served in the position for over a decade. 

“Much like the highway trucks, it only has 70,000 miles on it, but that’s probably 300,000 miles considering idle time and all these dirt roads,” O’Keefe said.

At the end of the session, Moderator Mark Schiffman opened the floor to discuss other business related to Town Meeting.

Nick Moore inquired about what had come of the $150,000 allocation made at last year’s Town Meeting to clean up two properties owned by resident Jed Smith and his mother, Martha, in accordance with the town’s zoning ordinance.

“It’s in progress,” said a town official.

Jed Smith then told residents that members of the community have been helping him and his mother with the clean up, which is not yet completed. “That was just heartwarming that I received so much public support...and none of that was a cost to taxpayers at all,” he said.

Schiffman also took a straw poll of present voters’ interest in changing the time and day of the floor portion of Town Meeting. Keeping the same day and time as well as changing the meeting to 6 p.m. both yielded favorable responses.

Results from ballot voting — including the election of town officials and an article that would allow the Selectboard to change the day of the floor portion of Town Meeting – held until 7 p.m. Tuesday were unavailable by deadline.

Ballot voting will take place from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday at the Lyme School.

Marion Umpleby can be reached at mumpleby@vnews.com or 603-727- 3306.