With a husband serving as a call firefighter, Joann Avila makes it a point to attend every District No. 1 Prudential Committee to be informed and ask questions about how the department is being run.

She now hopes to serve on the committee herself. She’s no stranger to volunteerism, having served on the Dartmouth Veterans Advisory Board and volunteers at the Dartmouth Council on Aging. She also ran against John Haran for his Prudential Committee seat last year, but lost her bid for election.

“I feel that we need someone who knows what’s going on, who’s been there month after month at these meetings, someone who has that experience and knowledge to get in there and help out to help move the department forward,” Avila said.

Avila listed taxes as her top concern. She wants to ensure District No. 1’s fire tax rate remains low, as it is already the lowest out of all three fire districts. She also wants to ensure District No. 1 stays an on-call department, which she said has served the department well.

With a major equipment replacement driving fire taxes up this year, Avila hopes to bring back a practice of establishing five-year spending plans to help prevent sudden tax hikes by having savings ready to fund known equipment replacements.

“If that was planned for, knowing that they have to be replaced after so many years, we could have stuck with a lower and more consistent tax rate like what we’ve been doing over the past years,” Avila said.

When she’s not at meetings, Avila is busy raising her two children, both DeMello Elementary students, and shopping in the village.