HOWLAND – Residents voted down buying a new firetruck, but Fire Chief Phil Dawson won’t let it end there, he said Friday.

Dawson expressed dismay at the vote during the town meeting Monday that shot down spending $170,000 for a truck replacing a 37-year-old rebuilt model the town uses.

The fact that the truck purchase would not affect tax rates this year or next may have eluded people who voted against the purchase, he said.

“It’s a setback. We are going to have to replace them [town firetrucks] sooner or later,” Dawson said Friday. “We kind of expected it would go through because the funding for the truck is specifically set aside for purchases. We felt that because it wasn’t coming from taxation we could start looking around for a new one.

“We’re going to have to go back and make sure that people understand what the situation is, and eventually we will have to take it to them again,” he added. “These trucks are not getting any better with age.”

About 200 of the town’s 864 registered voters gathered at polls Monday to vote on the proposed $518,056 budget.

The voters also turned down buying a new container truck for about $35,000 – another purchase that would have come from an accumulated account – and opted not to help fund a new Penobscot Valley Hospital ambulance for $3,127, town officials said.

The new budget appropriates $330,274 from taxation for the 2005-06 fiscal year, a $8,962 increase in property taxes over the amount appropriated during the present fiscal year.

Voters also named incumbent Fred Ireland (133 votes) and challengers Jerry Harris (119) and Mike Harris (116) to the Board of Selectmen. Selectman Richard Merrill lost his re-election bid with 101 votes.

Judy Coffin, Glenn Faloon and John Neel were named to represent the town on the SAD 31 board.

The town’s 1967 Ford Thibeault was upgraded about 10 years ago with a new back chassis, tank and repainting, but federal firefighting standards don’t generally recommend using trucks more than 20 years old as first-line vehicles, Dawson said.

The Ford runs well, but the problem with using such an old truck is its unpredictability, Dawson said. The vehicle could quit at any time simply because of age.

“It’s obviously something that you cannot predict,” he said. “If it does quit, like in the middle of a fire, we’ll just have to sit back and watch the fire burn.”

The town’s newest vehicle is a 1983 Ford FMC pumper. Judging either vehicle by its age and mileage would be misleading because the town handles about 80 calls a year, he said.

Still, both trucks regularly require small repairs “and that’s usually a good indication that they are going to hell on us,” Dawson said.

“I think the town of Howland’s gotten its money out of” the 1967 model, he said.

Dawson didn’t expect the issue to be resurrected before June, he said.