AUBURN — The ongoing controversy over who will answer Androscoggin County’s emergency calls will again go to the County Commission.
The proposed 2012 county budget — due to be presented by the Budget Committee in a 6 p.m. public hearing Wednesday, Dec. 28 — jettisoned money that would have upgraded aging dispatch equipment.
The move will force the three-member commission to again weigh the best plan, a process that has already lasted years.
Commissioners thought they found a way to pass the issue to the Budget Committee, voting to spend more than $300,000 on new equipment for the county dispatch center.
When the committee met to discuss the matter, people from several towns spoke out on the competing plans to improve the current center or send the work to Lisbon or Lewiston-Auburn 911.
The Budget Committee refused to get hauled into the matter, member Philip Moreau of Greene said.
Commission Chairman Randall Greenwood introduced a plan that would have moved the dispatch center out of its squeezed headquarters and into the conference room used by the commissioners.
The plan never got far, though. Greenwood had no backing from the other commissioners.
Commissioner Jonathan LaBonte, who left office Wednesday when he was sworn in as Auburn’s mayor, was out of the country when the plan was hatched. The other commissioner, Elaine Makas, was on vacation.
“I did my best,” Greenwood said. He had created a site plan to show how the rooms might be used. But the Budget Committee passed the dispatch center’s operational budget only. It effectively blocked any change and passed the policy question back to the commission.
“If they can prove that the county dispatch is still the best way to go, then we could always go back and revisit the capital expenditures,” Moreau said.
Before the commission can act, it must get a new member.
By statute, Gov. Paul LePage must appoint a replacement for LaBonte.
“The dispatch issue has been brought to a standstill, pending a meeting of the County Commission in January or February,” Greenwood said.
Comments are no longer available on this story