PARIS — Oxford County Administrator Donald Durrah discussed with the County Commission on Tuesday morning plans to move the Sheriff’s Office into the former district court space during the county jail renovations.

The county is currently finalizing plans to install a new HVAC system in the jail and expand the medical facilities, which will include isolation cells for inmates with contagious illnesses, such as COVID-19.

To prepare for the renovation and create the needed space, the Sheriff’s Office will move out of its first-floor space behind the county courthouse and move into space near the former district court.

The move would affect the sheriff, chief deputy and the administrative staff. Also expected to move into that space are the information technology office and possibly the detectives and patrol divisions.

“There are a lot of moving parts right now,” Durrah said. “I need to move the Sheriff’s Office to make this plan work.”

While he did not have the final numbers, design or a timeline to share with commissioners, Durrah said the project would be cheaper than he initially thought. The county would not need to knock down any walls, he said.

Durrah is trying to keep costs down since this solution is considered a temporary fix of four to five years. The county is considering a new public safety building to house all of those offices. The public safety building would also be home to the Oxford County Regional Communication Center and the Emergency Management Agency.

Department heads have visited new public safety buildings in Scarborough and Yarmouth to get ideas from them and learn from their mistakes.

Durrah said he hopes to have more information on the project’s costs at the next commissioners meeting.

In other business, the commissioners accepted the Ed MacDonald Safety Enhancement Grant of $2,692 from the Maine Municipal Association for safety equipment, including cones, flagging and traffic vests.

The board approved the hiring of Corey Smith as a part-time deputy and the promotions of Michael LeBel and Trent Newton to corporals in the county jail.

District Attorney Neil McLean Jr. told the board about plans by the local courts to host a pair of “court blitzes” for one week each in May and June. The blitz will allow prosecutors and defense attorneys to work with the judicial branch to resolve part of the huge backlog of cases, which McLean estimated stands at 2,700 in Oxford, Androscoggin and Franklin counties combined.

The weeklong blitz for the tri-county district will be held in Androscoggin County and will likely focus on low-level crimes. McLean said the idea is not to merely dismiss cases, but to come up with deals and perhaps creative punishments that will lessen the backlog of cases.

McLean said some of the details still need to be worked out.

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