WESTBROOK — For more than a year, the Westbrook Ambulance Association was in default of its mortgage to KeyBank, with town property as collateral. At a meeting Thursday night, residents approved paying off the debt and avoiding the loss of property.
More than 50 neighbors attended the town meeting where they voted unanimously to authorize an appropriation of $163,000 to pay the bank debt and related costs and another $75,000 for an audit of the ambulance association.
Timothy Herbst, the town attorney, justified the payments and explained how it reached this point.
“We have a financial obligation of which we’re a guarantor, ” Herbst said. “We are either going to deal with it or we’re going to get foreclosed upon.”
In 2008, the Westbrook Ambulance Association obtained a $300,000 mortgage from NewAlliance Bank — later acquired by KeyBank — for improvements. As collateral, the town offered the building at 1316 Boston Post Road where the association’s headquarters are located. The property has been leased to the association since 1975 for $1 per year.
First Selectman John Hall said the mortgage had followed a proper vetting and approval process.
“They put the additional six bays and the rear wing of the ambulance. It was a big addition,” Hall said.
According to Herbst’s account, no local officials knew of the mortgage default for more than a year until the first selectman, John Hall, received an email. It was an inquiry from a local appraiser regarding the possible foreclosure of the property. This set off alarms. A few days later the town was notified that on July 29 the bank had filed for strict foreclosure.
The association’s chair, Gregg Prevost, resigned after the situation became public and has faced criticism for the financial mismanagement. Prevost has held that position since 1988.
Herbst gave a historical overview of the association at Thursday’s meeting and questioned the longtime failure of Prevost to share information with town officials. Herbst said he had obtained correspondence since at least 2010 in which the town government asked the association for financial and other information to file with the Department of Public Health, but without getting answers.
After taking over as town attorney in 2022, Herbst said he was alerted that there were problems with the ambulance association. He said he had requested information and also had not gotten a response. Herbst told CT Examiner that one possibility for the reluctance to share the information was that they did not want the organization’s “dire” financial situation to be known, although that is part of what the audit will assess.
Herbst also questioned the lack of oversight by the association’s board and in particular that the chief’s wife, RoseAnn Prevost, who was treasurer.
The town’s attorney said they conducted their own due diligence to understand the association’s situation and found evidence that they had not filed tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service for several years and that their tax-exempt status had been revoked. He also said they found a “big container of shredded documents” in the organization’s headquarters.
First Selectman Hall said there were records of tax liens placed “a couple of times” at the ambulance association in the past, but they were rescinded because they were paid at the time.
Herbst also said the town had obtained information on the number of responses to emergency calls and found that a good portion had been handled by associations in other towns.
“Notwithstanding the issues the ambulance association has, the towns in this area work to provide mutual aid; Clinton, Deep River, Old Saybrook, Essex, Westbrook,” Herbst said. “The good news is that these towns work well together.”
Herbst also said that conversations are underway for the town to have representatives on the ambulance association and to assist with accounts payable and payroll tasks.
The firm Sansiveri Kimball and Co. will be hired to conduct an independent audit. and Herbst said he expects the audit to last a couple of months, which will allow them to identify who is responsible for the situation, not broad-brush volunteers and well-intentioned people. Many took over the association, he said, after Prevost’s resignation and were keeping it operational.
“I think there’s a recognition that this audit is perhaps more important for them than for the town,” Herbst said, “because you don’t want other members of the ambulance association to be associated with or accused of engaging in conduct that they were not aware of or had no knowledge of.”
Although residents supported the proposal to pay the debt, they voiced criticism about the lack of oversight by officials and questions about whether the association could be required to repay the money. Herbst said he did not want to “speculate” about the possibility of recovering money or civil litigation against those responsible before the audit.
“We want to fix this,” said Herbst. “Should have been done a long time ago, but we’re doing it now.”