Selectmen unanimously voted not to support Article 41. Selectmen Chairman Betsy Sullivan voted against Article 38 and 39. Selectman Andre Martecchini voted for Articles 38 and Article 39, while Selectman John Tuffy voted for Article 38 but against Article 39.

Article 38 will ask voters to change Duxbury’s nuclear emergency plan to require that all school buses stationed at Chandler Elementary School and all of the town’s other emergency resources, including police and emergency workers, be used exclusively for Duxbury residents during an emergency at Pilgrim nuclear power station in Plymouth. Sponsored by the Nuclear Advisory Committee, this article states that town officials would only certify Duxbury’s radiological emergency plan and procedures if the new requirement about the buses is incorporated into the plan. During a nuclear emergency, the state can authorize Duxbury’s buses and those from other towns to go to Plymouth, which does not have many buses, or any other community. It can also order Duxbury police and emergency workers to other locations.

Article 39 proposes that the plan require that the reception center to which residents would evacuate during a nuclear emergency be able to handle 100 percent of institutionalized people, such as students in school and the elderly in a nursing home, and 75 percent of the regular population. The plan currently requires the reception center and mass care facility at the Braintree high school to take in 20 percent of Duxbury residents.

The Nuclear Advisory Committee wants Duxbury to refuse to certify its emergency plan with the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency until these two key issues are addressed. The members feel that if Town Meeting approves these articles it will show how Duxbury can stand up to MEMA and Pilgrim’s owners, Entergy. This will be bad public relations for them and may force these organizations to take Duxbury’s concerns seriously, said the committee.

While selectmen are opposed to sending the buses housed in Duxbury elsewhere and support having enough space at the Braintree reception center, they are mixed in how they view the idea of refusing to sign the plan. Sullivan did not agree with it, calling it “a different negotiating tactic.”

“It has been the position of DEMA (Duxbury Emergency Management Agency) and the board that it’s better to work with these people than to take our ball and go home,” Sullivan said. “The end game is that when DEMA goes in to negotiate, the negotiations have been taken away from them.”

Sullivan said that with a new fire chief  – who is also in charge of Duxbury’s emergency planning – coming in this year, she would hate to hinder his or her ability to negotiate with Entergy and MEMA.

“I’d hate to hog tie the new head of DEMA,” said Sullivan.

Nuclear Advisory Chairman Mary “Pixie” Lampert said that the town has gotten nowhere in two decades by writing letters and that it was time to take action.

“There is a long track record of writing letters, having meetings, having senators write letters to have meetings,” said Lampert. “We’re part of a shell game.”

She called the refusal to certify the plan the next logical step. If the town does not certify the emergency plan this year and there is a nuclear emergency, then the current plan would go into effect, she said.

“What do you have to lose?” Lampert asked Sullivan.

“What do I have to gain?” Sullivan responded. “I’d hate to close the door before we even sit down at the table.”

Martecchini, who voted for both Articles 38 and 39, said he was willing to try this tactic, although he felt changes to the emergency plan would never be made in ten months, the time when it had to be recertified by the town and state.

“I have had mixed reactions to these articles,” he said. “I agree 100 percent with the desire here. This may be a strategy that actually does something. It may be worth a try. A year from now we may be wishing we’d never done this, but I’m willing to give this strategy a shot.”

“One thing everybody fears is a public relations problem,” he added.

Martecchini said that other states and towns have used this strategy. Kingston has not certified its plan, said the committee.

Selectman John Tuffy voted for Article 38 but against Article 39. He was against the buses being sent to other towns but wondered: “In a practical sense, they’re not our school buses, how can we require them to stay here?”

The Nuclear Advisory Committee said they will move to indefinitely postpone Article 41. This article proposed that Town Meeting make it the policy of Duxbury to oppose the relicensing of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station to extend operations until 2032 until it uses the secured dry cask storage method of storing spent nuclear fuel. The committee believes this is a safer way to store used radioactive fuel. They also want a return to a low density storage pool for recently unloaded spent nuclear fuel at Pilgrim. Selectmen took no action on this article.

Selectmen did, however, vote not to support Article 41, a citizen’s petition by Lampert. This article seeks to make it the town’s policy that any review of changes to the nuclear emergency plan that includes the Pilgrim nuclear plant operators and the Mass. Emergency Management Agency also include other organizations, such as selectmen, the Nuclear Advisory Committee and the Duxbury Emergency Management Agency.

“Clearly there is strength in numbers by sending more of our people,” said Lampert. “This is a big issue. We’re playing with the big boys. We should play the way big boys play. It doesn’t mean they have to go, just that they’re invited.”

Martecchini didn’t agree: “I’m not going to support this. To require it every time there is a change is not in the best interests of negotiation,” he said.

In related business, selectmen reviewed the committee’s proposed changes to emergency planning implementation procedures for the police and department of public works. They will consider installing small evacuation route signs at key intersections of town.