AUBURN — In less than two years, emergency calls from anywhere in Androscoggin County could be answered and dispatched from a single location.

Androscoggin County commissioners voted 2-1 Wednesday to support the concept of a single 911 answering and dispatch center, as long as the new center is under countywide control, offers tiers of services to meet both city and rural needs and distributes costs fairly and equitably.

The vote marks the first formal decision on joining dispatch services across the county, despite three studies and more than five years of analysis.

“I think we’ve come further in the last hour and 45 minutes than we have in the last two years,” Commission Chairman Randall Greenwood said before the final vote.

“Why move now?” Greenwood asked. Then, he answered his own question. “We have a deadline of next Wednesday.”

On Sept. 22, members of the Maine Public Utilities Commission are scheduled to listen to comments on a proposal that would force almost every Maine county to have a single answering system. It would merge Androscoggin County’s 911 answering centers, located at Lewiston-Auburn 911 in Auburn and the county’s dispatch system in the Androscoggin County Building.

“If we don’t do anything, the Public Utilities Commission is going to superimpose itself on us,” Commissioner Elaine Makas said.

Commissioners plan to take their merger message to the Maine PUC at its hearing.

“I think it’s a step in the right direction,” said Phyllis Gamache Jensen, the director of Lewiston-Auburn 911. She believes state leaders will accept the Androscoggin move and, when possible, award the county some money to make the changes.

However, detailing a merger that is accepted by each of the 14 towns will be difficult, said attendees, who included several town managers, selectmen and police and fire chiefs.

Two of the previous consolidation efforts broke down over who would pay for dispatch services and at what rate. The third effort was ended before it tackled the money questions.

Minot Fire Chief Steve French, who served on two of the groups, said he was heartened by commissioners’ attention to spreading the costs fairly.

“I just want it to be fair,” he said after the meeting. Cities and towns require different services that ought to have different price tags. “It sounds like the commissioners are hearing us.”

Lisbon Selectman Michael Bowie hopes to ease worries among dispatch workers countywide that any changes would be at least a year away and merger talks have always included safeguards to keep dispatchers working.

In the end, the commission vote was not unanimous.

Commissioner Jonathan LaBonte, who authored the decision, was backed by Greenwood.

Makas said she was unable to back the move, since it seemed to imply Androscoggin County control over a merged center rather than more generic countywide control.

She also thought the decision went unnecessarily far, making governance an explicit condition for the county’s approval.

French asked people to remember that the proposed changes are meant to save lives, just as changes in the 1980s helped established the simple 911 system for emergencies.

“Nobody wants to go back to seven-digit numbers,” French said.

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