AUBURN – Sheriff Guy Desjardins begged.

Worn by political squabbles and frustrated by his inability to get measures through the three-member County Commission, Androscoggin County’s top cop buckled.

“I am begging the commission to please sit down and talk,” he said Wednesday. “I do know that this is not a healthy environment. We need to open county government up. We need to show people what we do and sell ourselves.”

Both Desjardins and Elmer Berry, the chairman, agree that the relationship between the new sheriff and the commission is strained.

Berry declined Thursday to talk in specifics about the breakdown.

However, Desjardins, who spent 11 years as the county’s chief deputy, said the traditionally fractious relationship has never been worse. And he worries that the rancor may be getting in the way of his doing his job, a position he has held for only nine weeks.

Desjardins has begun videotaping commission meetings in hopes that he can distribute them to local access channels across the county for broadcast. And he has asked the commission to move the afternoon meetings to nighttime, when more people can attend.

Desjardins has even suggested consulting with either the county attorney or a justice in the Superior Court for a primer on the “line of authority” between the county and the Sheriff’s Department.

His hope: progress.

“I feel like I’ve been given a ticket to the ballgame but they won’t let me in the gate,” he said.

Desjardins’ first act as sheriff – the naming of his chief deputy – is still unsettled. And a difficult fight to boost cruiser coverage at night, which had Desjardins lobbying the Budget Committee and the commission to add a patrol deputy, remains mired in a back-and-forth between his department and the commission.

Desjardins, with the backing of Patrol Capt. Raymond Lafrance, had requested two additional deputies. The commission turned them down. The Budget Committee agreed to add one position, including the job in its budget, which passed in January.

Commissioners then argued that money was too tight to add the job, a transfer of personnel within the department from the jail to the patrol division. The group vetoed the Budget Committee’s budget.

Then, iunanimously, the Budget Committee overturned the veto, forcing the money into the $10.3 million spending package.

By law, however, Berry and the commission need not spend it. So far, the group has refused to allow Desjardins to hire the officer.

Berry said Thursday he believes Desjardins’ portrait of few patrols – with only a supervisor and a single patrol deputy working some nights – is inaccurate. He said he has begun an analysis of the issue using “official documentation.”

Meanwhile, Desjardins said he stands by his request for the deputy and the statements he made to the commission and the committee.

“I stand by it 100 percent,” he said.

He has given similar support to his choice of chief deputy, Eric Samson. Even before his election, Desjardins named Samson, 14-year veteran of the county.

However, Samson has yet to be officially hired for the role. The commission set the salary for the chief deputy – who by state law must fill in for the sheriff in his absence – at $32,000.

However, as a sergeant in the department, Samson has been making an annual wage of $43,000. Traditionally, such promotions in the department come with a 10 percent pay raise, not a cut.

So Desjardins made Samson an “acting chief deputy” at his old salary while he moved Samson into his old office and added him to department letterhead as “chief deputy.”

Berry has refused to acknowledge the promotion.

“There is nothing in the (Maine law) statute that calls for an ‘acting chief deputy,'” Berry said Wednesday.

“I can take it,” Samson said of his limbo. “Sooner or later, this will resolve itself.”

Most important, Desjardins and the department staff respect him as the second in command, Samson said.

Desjardins said he still holds out hope that the disagreements will be worked out.

“Professionally, I’m a fish in water,” he said. “Politically, it’s tough.”

Eventually, the sides must come together, said Michael Bowie, chairman of the Budget Committee.

Neither has been as diplomatic as they could be, he said.

The commission’s insistence on the patrol deputy “looks bad,” he said. Meanwhile, Desjardins’ work to make himself into a recognizable sheriff, including his name painted on the rear door of the new cruiser color scheme, has made some people bristle.

“I don’t believe Elmer and Guy have ever really gotten along,” said Bowie, who also serves as a town councilor in Lisbon.

“I’d like to see them come together,” he said.