FARMINGTON – Sheriff Dennis Pike says Franklin County’s deputy shortage is a crisis that is putting added strain on the current squad.

Another full-time deputy should be on the roster by the end of July and the entire force will be back to full strength by year’s end, possibly as early as October, according Pike.

The department relies on the manpower of six full-time patrol deputies and two corporals. They have only four full-time deputies including Heidi Gould, Michelle St. Clair, Brent Howard and Sandy Burke and two corporals – Nathan Bean and Stephen Charles.

The county is down two deputies because of the National Guard activation last October for Kenneth Charles and the resignation of Sarge Daigle after his expulsion from the Maine Criminal Justice Academy in June.

Gift accepted; partners denied

WILTON – Officials accepted a proposal for a conditional gift of land when they met Tuesday. They voted unanimously against providing domestic partner health insurance.

Town Manager Peter Nielsen said the town discovered that about half of the town’s Little League baseball field in East Wilton was actually on private property. The owner of the property told the town he would trade that property for some help from the town in getting a house site started with enough gravel for a 50-foot driveway and a culvert.

Nielsen said the gravel will costs about $489 and the culvert about $250. In addition, surveying work to put up corner posts will not exceed $800. The total cost to the town will be less than $1,539. Officials signed an agreement to exchange the work for the property.

Selectmen decided against offering health insurance to domestic partners who are not legally married. Nielsen said some towns do offer such coverage. The town pays 70 percent of health insurance costs for full-time employees.

Nielsen said he spoke with Maine Municipal Association and was told municipalities can elect to offer such insurance by a vote of the town’s selectmen. He said as far as he knows there has been only one town employee interested in the coverage so far.

“I think it would set a dangerous precedent. I don’t agree with it,” Selectman Norman Gould said. The board unanimously agreed.

UMF unaffected by court’s ruling

FARMINGTON – A U.S. Supreme Court ruling on college admissions last week will have no effect locally, says a University of Maine at Farmington official.

The ruling said race could be used as a factor in accepting students into college, but assigning points or values to candidates based on their race can’t.

Tom Donaghue, the school’s director of public information, says the ruling will have “virtually no impact” at the Farmington college.

The word virtually, he says, is because race does play a factor in certain federal and state minority scholarship programs that UMF administers, for example the Native American Waiver Program.

But, when it comes to accepting students, the admissions department will consider the same factors they always have, such as academic success in high school, extra-curricular activities, recommendations, a written essay and an interview.

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