GRANVILLE — Residents of Granville at their Tuesday evening town meeting pretty quickly OK’d their town spending plan — a $478,648 bottom line, which represented a hike of $58,128, or 13.8%, over last year — but spent an hour talking about the future of the town fire department, before tabling that article.

“It was a long meeting,” said Town Clerk Cheryl Sargeant on Wednesday morning.

In the town report, the selectboard had said it had received concerns over the viability of the Granville Volunteer Fire Department, and the board wanted to ask citizens if it was time to “take a different approach to ensure our town has continued, reliable access to reliable emergency and fire service.”

After those at the meeting chewed it over for an hour and no positive steps came up, residents decided to let the next selectboard take up the issue.

And the next selectboard will be different. Incumbent Ken Beattie decided he wouldn’t run for re-election, and board chair Kelli Eckroth had resigned effective March 4. The battle to replace them at town meeting resulted in paper ballots being cast in both elections.

In the race to fill out the remaining two years on Eckroth’s seat, Jared Rouleau prevailed with 24 votes, Kevin Bagley got 7 votes, and Cheryl Sargeant got 6.

In the election to fill the three-year seat, Robert Readie was the winner with 26 votes; Bagley garnered 10 votes in this election.

Both of the new selectboard members are relative newcomers — Rouleau has been in town for about two years, and Readie close to five, the town clerk said.

Another long discussion was had over funding for the town constable. Town Constable Mark Belisle, who has been on the job for 30 years, was re-elected. Then a faction of the meeting discussed taking away all the funding for the constable and instead paying the county sheriff or state police to enforce the laws in Granville. That debate did not lead to any changes.

One thing that did lead to a change was an article asking if the town would discontinue the elective office of auditor, and instead hire out the job to professionals. The town ended the elected position.

That change sparked the only discussion on the budget. It was noted that the budget does not need $300 for auditor training if there wasn’t an auditor. So the budget was amended downward by $300 and it passed by voice vote.