State might help Sheriff Eric Samson bypass Auburn’s roadblocks for new offices

Fed up with what some see as Auburn’s effort to stop the Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Office from setting up shop at a new headquarters on Center Street, state lawmakers are eyeing measures to support the move.

“The whole thing is bonkers,” said an outraged Auburn Mayor Jason Levesque.

But backers of the project said they are looking for state help because the city has proven stubborn in its opposition to what Androscoggin County Commissioners argue is the best solution to a serious, long-standing problem.

“This has turned to be almost a nightmare in Androscoggin County,” said state Sen. Jeff Timberlake, a Turner Republican who sponsored two bills aimed at addressing the issue.

The Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Office hopes to move to the former Evergreen Subaru at Center Street, foreground, and Joline Drive, left, in Auburn, as seen in February 2022. The county bought the property 14 months ago for $4.5 million. A bill before the Maine Legislature would clear the way for the county to pick sites for its public safety and government buildings, without having to cope with new requirements imposed by Auburn officials. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal file

One of his bills would allow Androscoggin County government buildings to be placed in either Lewiston or Auburn, undermining Auburn’s role as the county seat since 1854.

The other would clear the way for the county to pick sites for its public safety and government buildings without having to cope with new requirements imposed by Auburn officials.

State Rep. Kristen Cloutier, a Lewiston Democrat who serves as assistant majority leader, told the Committee on State and Local Government this week that Auburn has raised “baseless claims and roadblocks” to a much-needed project to improve the Sheriff’s Office.

But Auburn City Manager Phil Crowell said the county has not even applied for a permit for the new site. Instead, he said, it is looking for the state to provide an exception to the rules.

“This is about trying to circumvent City Council,” Crowell said. “This is what it’s about.”

Crowell and Levesque said Wednesday nobody disputes that the Sheriff’s Office needs better quarters. They questioned, though, why the county has been unwilling to have its plan studied in a public review process.

The proposed laws, which are still under consideration in committee, are clearly aimed at easing the way for Sheriff Eric Samson to shift operations to the former Evergreen Subaru dealership at 774 Center St. that Androscoggin County bought 14 months ago for $4.5 million.

Samson said the dispute has already “delayed us a year.”

Levesque said he finds it “hard to believe the Legislature is going to ram through a bill that targets one city in the state of Maine” and undermines municipal rule.

“They are not a city council,” the mayor said. “They are a state legislative body.”

Timberlake said, though, the city could have simply let the normal review process play out.

Instead, it imposed a moratorium on new government building sites and then put in place new, more rigorous rules for getting approval — and set it up so the Auburn City Council could veto the project, even if the Planning Board approved it.

“Androscoggin County simply wants to use a building that they purchased for a constitutionally required role that they plan, hosting the Sheriff’s Office,” the lawmaker said. “The county played by the rules and were punished for unspecific reasons.”

He said the way it is now, the city “specifically zoned the county out of going anywhere outside of where they currently reside, and a few blocks around them.”

As a result, Timberlake said, “Planning for the future has become impossible.”

Cloutier said deputies working at the old County Building, “which is in dire disrepair,” are forced now to “breathe in black mold and trudge through ankle-deep water from seasonal flooding.”

Timberlake said the Sheriff’s Office deserves better than “deputies literally in the dark, out in the cold and up to their ankles in filth.”

Levesque called the assertions about current working conditions for deputies “lies.”

The claims are exaggerated versions of some issues mentioned in a Sun Journal story about touring the building two years ago.

Levesque and Crowell complained the bills were sprung at the last minute, with no public notice and no time for anyone to react. Were it not for a tip from a State House insider, Crowell said, nobody from the city would have known to show up and offer opposing testimony on the measures.

Crowell also told the committee that changing the county seat should be a decision for county residents, not something done lightly by the Legislature.

“It should not be at the whim of a majority of county commissioners who may have a political spat with a city,” Crowell said.

Samson’s plan for the Center Street site is to have it house his office, other administrative offices and the patrol division, criminal investigation division and communications and civil division. It would require a 14,000-square-foot addition, he has said. It would not include a jail or detention cells.

It is not clear what will happen next in Augusta.

Some legislators discussed trying to mediate the dispute between Auburn and the county, before moving ahead with the bills.

Crowell said the state has more important issues to address.

He dismissed Timberlake’s bills as unnecessary and insisted the issue they focus on “should be handled at the local level.”