Sagadahoc County Commissioners Approve Two 911 Hires and Jail Governance Consultant

[0:02] Chair: Is this everyone you expect, Phil? [0:06] Commissioner: Joel should be coming also. [0:09] Chair: Do you want to wait for him? No, I don't think so. Okay, good afternoon. It is Monday, September 28th, 2 o'clock, and a regular meeting or special meeting of the Saginaw County Commissioners. I'd like to call the meeting to order. The quorum is present. We have a, there is no one here from the public, so we'll, we'll wave public comment. We have a few action items. I'd like to motion to authorize the hire of Anya Wallace to the position of 9-1-1 dispatcher effective October 5, 2026. [0:59] Commissioner: Second. Motion second. She has a little bit under or over a year of experience at a neighboring agency that's not a 911 dispatch center, so as far as the dispatching aspect, that training will be streamlined. It's just getting the 911 certifications and all the other, the extra certification that comes with working that, he said, should be an overall expedited training process. Any [1:33] Chair: questions? Mike? No. Okay, we have a motion, a second. All in favor of hire of Anya Wallace? All in favor? Great. Any, no one opposed? Okay, thank you. Second, we have a motion to hire Courtney Chastanet to the position of 911 Dispatcher, effective October 1st, 2026. Do we have a motion? Motion. And second. [2:02] Commissioner: I thought you put it at the end of the first, so I thought you had the motion. Mike. Yeah, she has about five years of experience all here, year. Her training process consists about a week of getting re-activated and certifications all up to date. And [2:26] Chair: she's coming in at a slightly higher hourly rate? That reflects her time as a ladder. [2:35] Commissioner: She didn't need to go to another dispatcher. She left for personal family reasons again, as now. [2:44] Chair: And with these two hires, where does that leave you? Full staff. Good. Any discussion? Any questions? No. Okay. We have a motion and a second. All in favor? Okay. That passes. Thanks. Thank you, Mike. Next action item, we have a proposal from Daniel Auger for painting. And this is, you want to, Jill? [3:16] Commissioner: Yes. So this would be for the entire administrative office across the parking lot here. It would be all of the offices, the kitchen, removing the wallpaper and repainting the bathrooms, as well as doing repair for any of the, we have the horsehair plaster in the building. This is our only response. Only response. Yes. So just posted on all the sites that need to be posted. We don't know how it looks without a quote, so we have another quote. Does it seem reasonable? It does. That was about what we were expecting. [3:53] Chair: What was budgeted, do you recall? [3:55] Commissioner: This was all out of the interior maintenance work. We had $30,000 total budgeted for painting and carpeting. Okay. [4:04] Chair: And this fits within whatever you were expecting as far as carpet? Yep. Okay. Do we have a motion to accept? Do we have a motion? Second. Second. Okay. Any other discussion? All in favor. Okay. When is he actually, should have asked, when is he going to start? We haven't [4:32] Commissioner: gotten that as far as what we wanted to at least get it approved to get going. Okay, and [4:40] Chair: then you put it on as an action item, but you could, you could also consider this a discussion item. We have a proposal for an award to Veril Dana for work on facilitating the discussion, the District 6 jail collaboration discussion with Lincoln and Knox County. Do you want to discuss it? Okay. Okay, so we have, we have two people, Todd and Joe both participate, and Jason, and Jason, I'm sorry, with the, with the District Six collaboration discussion, so the three of them [5:37] Commissioner: are the other, those, yes. So the committee as a whole had decided that we really needed someone to lead this process. Our meetings were, I say, become less productive as we are kind of reaching the maximum of our capabilities and what people were comfortable discussing as a group, so we put out an RFP for this service. This will be someone to not just facilitate but also make recommendations, like for the government structure and the legislation, and we do have a draft of the RFP in here as well for your review. We got six responses to the RFP, and the three administrators, Carrie Kipfer and Amber and myself all met. And there were two that we thought warranted a closer look. So we really went through all of those and sent them to our various county groups. And the unanimous decision was Vero Dana. They really had the experience we were looking for. It would be Jim Cohen doing the work. So he's familiar with specifically Maine counties, Maine county work, jail legislation, everything. We thought they were by far the strongest proposal. The other person was someone from New Hampshire who also had a strong background, but not that level of experience. So what's the big difference? Why do you think they're in the field? Are there more people that are throwing at this? Definitely the experience, but also the amount of time Jim is willing to put into the process. This is really the all-inclusive number. He's not going to bill us for anything above and beyond. So there's no extra cost for travel or anything like that. The other proposal, was travel separate? Yes, travel was separate. And the person would be traveling from New Hampshire, which he was willing to do, or do remote meeting. So any, Todd, do you remember, or do you remember, was there any discussion about the cost difference between the counties, or was it? We've never had a meeting about that. We just sent it to them. Our discussion on that was that, well,, it looks like a big cost difference on paper when you divide it three ways. It's really a minor cost difference, and we would feel much more comfortable going with Jim Cohen as a known party. [Chair: Cohen has experience.] Oh, I've known Cohen. Yeah, I've known Jim when I was in the legislature years ago, and he did a great job with MCCA. Knox has already approved it. Lincoln's fine with it, too. I don't think they've had their meeting yet. [8:36] Chair: We talked about where the money... [8:39] Commissioner: Yes, the money can come... [8:40] Chair: Because this is not budgeted. [8:41] Commissioner: The transport budget is we have... I wish I had the... It doesn't need a fund balance? No,, no. [8:54] Chair: Well, if there's money in the transport budget for it, the sheriff kind of winced at that. [9:00] Commissioner: We can find the money, though, right? Yes, yeah. I mean, this is something that we have to do if we're going to move this forward, and it's going to be for the future of our three counties possibly all operating that JAN. So it's the way we're going to get to the next step unless we have someone that's talking to each other. It'll end up to the good result. If it does, it'll save the county. [9:32] Chair: My concern when I reviewed it and spoke with Joe Biddle is that within the common conventional understanding of facilitation, I had hoped that, and I think the proposal and the RFP, to some extent, but the proposal speaks to this, that the deliverables out of this are more than just facilitating a conversation among the three counties. I think we need someone who is going to, in a very concrete, material way, recommend and governance structures and a recommendation strategy to deal with the assets that we have, which include two bridges as a facility and also some ideas on how the Knox County Jail facility fits into the discussion. We've done a lot of talking about this. I mean, I think it's a great idea, but we've got to move beyond that conversation. [10:45] Commissioner: Was there any more to the rule than that? Is he just going to do it all together and talk? [10:50] Chair: He's going to come up with a final answer. I think the proposal does speak to that. [10:57] Commissioner: I would say this, in conjunction with the SMIT report, the SMIT report did exactly what you just said. It took a very broad look at everything and kind of said, you know, this is what you should do. This is the pathway that you should be exploring. So I think this is the next step from that. And so the deliverables should be recommendations, solid recommendations that this is what you should do in terms of dividing up assets, governance, all of those things. And I think that's... I didn't read forward that proposal, but it's my sense that they understand that 's the mission of this. [Chair: It seems so.] Right, because we've done all that other stuff. We've said, you know, this really makes sense. We should do this. Okay, but now how do we do it? What are the exact steps that we need to take? Well, one good thing about hiring this firm, Jim, is that Jim is, you know, actually the legislative specialist for all the county commissioners, and three of the counties are us. And so he's up there representing Maine County Commissioners Association. So I'm assuming that there will be a deliverable that has to be passed to legislature. And so if that happens, he's already up there. And he will be able to, in his capacity of representing MCCA, testify in favor of a bill that might have some questions or might have some issues and help rework that through the advisor's office or whatever needs to be done. So that would be, I think, besides the fact that he knows all of us and he's a great facilitator and a great attorney, he's also somebody that is up, is here in Maine and none of us show up for a special hearing. He's going to know all the players in order to move the legislation. We'll need enabling legislation. I will move this proposal that we hire Beryl Dana to this contract issued on August 24th, 2026. I don't have it exactly, but roughly $21,000 per county. 21 or? No, 27. Yeah, 84. [13:24] Chair: You don't want to put that in motion, though? [13:27] Commissioner: Well, I have right here the request for proposal. It's RFP number 2026-0824, Regional Governance Facilitation and Development Services for Two Bridges Regional Correctional Authority Governance Initiative, District 6, Colassus. Lincoln County, Saginaw County and Knox County the contract award would be starting October 15th with a contract to terminate in about 6 months it would be in Saginaw County's share that's the motion [14:16] Chair: I should put that in the motion. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? [14:30] Commissioner: Good job. Get me proposals and reviews, and thank you to the jail authority. It's about time. We're going to see you down the road. [14:40] Chair: Let the work begin. Although, unfortunately, we didn't have a willing partner this time around. There seems to be no ambiguity on the part of the interest on the part of Lincoln County to proceed, which is great. [15:00] Commissioner: Is there going to be any issue if the current sheriff is not re-elected? I'm not saying this politically. I just know that he's up for re-election. No, it's a great question. I think one of the things that's happening right now is the three sheriffs are trying to kind of pave the way, if you will, to show cooperation, working together, working out some of the operational bugs right now that currently exist, which many, by the way, I think we've really come to an agreement with the, you know, transport and video conferencing and how that's being staffed, working with TBIJ. So, you know, that's, like, important stuff. Up, add another person in there that might not be as familiar, might not have the background, might, you know, maybe problematic to some degree, but I don't see it as being... So you don't see the sheriff as blocking it? The county commissioners, Knox, have voted and so presumably, yeah, we're fine moving down the road? The sheriff can't really launch this up or at all or what? Well, you know, the county commissioners certainly control the purse strings. They have oversight of the assets. They have the ability to enter into agreements, and it will be up to the sheriff to execute those agreements. So that's the only wild card. You and Todd are not up for re-election, so it's just... Correct. Todd is, but he's... Todd is, but he's unopposed, and the Knox one is opposed. Okay. All right. Well, let's hope we move this thing down the road. We can always wait until after the election. [17:00] Chair: Well, the election happens quickly. If this gets derailed... [17:06] Commissioner: The other thing I would say is you would want to get Dana Vera on board working on this as soon as possible for the pending legislative session coming up. That will move very, slowly. Right. There's going to be a lot of other things that, in my opinion, and we're going to want to get this done long in advance. I think your schedule starts in October, doesn't it? So as quick as we can go. And then it's like every two weeks or another. He's going to interview everybody going to try to get the truth out of everybody to find out what Knox would really want. [17:51] Chair: That seems to be the hard part. [17:55] Commissioner: So maybe you start with them last, because they'll have a new sheriff or the regular sheriff. Okay. [18:06] Chair: And now we have a need for an executive session. [18:10] Commissioner: So I'll make a motion to go to executive session for Title I, MRSA, 4056A, to discuss personnel matters. Okay. Second. Second. Okay. We'll click off that. We'll click off that.