DAMARISCOTTA, Maine — Voters in Damariscotta face a decision about whether to dissolve the town’s 150-year-old police force after a unanimous vote Wednesday by the Board of Selectmen.
The Nov. 6 ballot will ask residents whether they want to change the town’s charter to allow selectmen to negotiate for law enforcement services with outside entities, namely the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department. Town Manager Matt Lutkus said discussions about the concept date back years but intensified in recent months partly as a means to save taxpayers money.
“The concern is that we are paying for Lincoln County sheriff services and also paying for our own police department,” said Lutkus. “To a lesser degree we’re also paying for [the Maine State Police]. The issue has come up frequently about why we have this duplication of process.”
According to estimates by Lutkus and a detailed proposal by Lincoln County Sheriff Todd Brackett, Damariscotta could shave its law enforcement budget from about $500,000 it pays now — not including another $5,000 for parking enforcement — to about $433,000 proposed by Brackett for 24-hour-a-day year-round coverage. Brackett also submitted a bid of $392,000 for 20-hour-a-day services.
Lutkus said he expects that savings to the town would increase after the first year because of the elimination of a sergeant’s position that is budgeted in fiscal year 2013, but which has been vacant since April of this year. Lutkus estimated that a resident who currently pays $1,500 in property taxes would save about $60 a year. Damariscotta’s municipal budget is about $5.5 million, approximately $3 million of which is for education and $384,000 supports county government.
Under the proposal, the sheriff’s department would commit to keeping a patrolman within town limits at all times and would use cruisers specially designated and marked for Damariscotta.
Police Chief Chad Andrews said his department has a good working relationship with the sheriff’s department, but that he fears Damariscotta will lose local knowledge and personalized police services — ranging from welfare checks on elderly residents to community policing activities — if the department is dissolved.
“This is a reduction in service,” said Andrews. “No matter what way [selectmen] want to portray it, it’s a reduction in service.”
Not including the vacant position, Damariscotta Police Department employs a secretary, five full-time officers and about a dozen reserve officers. Under Brackett’s proposal, the Damariscotta officers would be given preferential treatment within the county’s hiring guidelines, but Andrews, who has been with the department for 11 years, said about half of his force, including himself, are not interested.
“I don’t want to start over as a deputy,” he said.
There was little discussion on the issue among selectmen at Wednesday’s meeting, though Chairman David Atwater noted the concept has been explored seriously for about a year. The board voted to hold two public hearings on September 19 and 26, the times and locations of which have not been made final. Selectwoman Robin Mayer suggested that the November ballot include two questions, one which would ask residents to approve the charter change and another asking them whether they support dissolving the local department.
Former Selectman Calvin Dodge was one of a handful of people who spoke at the meeting. He said this issue has come up several times over the years and that the town should be diligent about calculating the actual costs and savings of the switch.
“We must be very careful and weigh this situation carefully,” he said. “I don’t want anything to happen to Damariscotta that we would regret in the future.”
Resident Mike Stailing, a retired police officer who worked for the Damariscotta force in the 1970s, said after the meeting that he feels the decision is being rushed and that the property tax savings for residents aren’t worth losing the local force.
“I’ll gladly pay that extra $60 a year,” he said.
They ought to be voting to dump Miles Hosp.
Well yeah, get rid of the hospital, police, etc. Why spend the money on stuff like that?
Someone needs to do a couple of things. First, take down the names of those selectmen, every one of them, put the list in a safe. Second, hang on to your rear ends, when the crime spree begins, you are all gonna feel pretty stupid for getting rid of your department. A sheriff’s department operating a law enforcement project in a town has never worked and will never work. Oh, and about that list in the safe. You can all use it to remind those selectmen as to exactly what they did to harm the town, many of them will be off the board by then, and a good thing would be to hold THEM responsible for their actions.
DO A THOROUGH BACKGROUND CHECK OF THE SELECTMEN
there was an attempt to get rid of a police department in another ‘maine town’
via a thorough background check of town selectmen behind the movement, i
found family members of the selectmen had criminal histories of drug dealing
and oui convictions. friends of the family members had a track record of
drug charges and various other crimes.
want to get rid of the police department to cut the budget, go ahead. but
i guarantee you there are hidden,personal agendas behind the town selectman
Crime is going through the roof and they want to cut their Police Department!?! Hahahahahaha
Do you know what 24 hour coverage means with the Sheriff’s Department? That means that there might be 1 or 2 Deputy’s within a 50 mile radius. So, if your call is the most important they’ll be there, but if they don’t have the coverage they’ll be there when they get there… Domestic Violence? Yep, they’ll get to it. Robberies? Yep, they’ll process the crime scene when they get there, but the criminals will be long gone. Car accidents? If nothing else is going on.
The Sheriff’s Department does a great job, my criticism in only directed towards the town. There is only so much coverage, and Deputy’s can only cover so much ground. Keep your force intact, The State Police and Sheriff’s Department are meant to be supplemental coverage to compliment your police force.
Resident Trooper and Deputy program’s have been tried all over the Country. Unless the town is a remote one, or has a lot (like 150 sq. miles) of ground to cover, either directly or under Mutual Aid, they just don’t work since inevitably the Trooper or Deputy’s Agency comes in and either pulls the Officer when their own budget’s get tight, and the Town can’t come up with the money the Agency claim’s it needs to keep the Resident Officer there, or, the Agency makes the Resident a full time Station and then backcharges the Town for the service to make up for it’s own budgeting shortfall’s. Either way the Town get’s the ‘shaft’ in the end. And add to this is the inevitable Mutual Aid calls that either the Resident Officer has to respond to, stripping the Town of coverage, or in the reverse, the Resident calls for and, again, the backcharging winds up costing the Town a bundle. D-Scotta’s Chief is more than right. It’s simple; penny cheap or municipal foolish.
For 150 years this has worked and now all of a sudden it is too expensive. Don’t be fooled by the old budget savings routine. Your dollars for law enforcement are well spent. Maybe you just need to do some cutting and or downgrading of positions. With all of the issues tied to law enforcment in small communittees today your local folks know better than the local sherrif. Bath Salts is an up and coming thing among the drug world and others. And by the way when you get next years bill let me know if there is additional savings or not
Have you ever noticed that when town managers talk about saving money by eliminating or consolidating departments, they never offer to eliminate town manager positions. Perhaps Newcastle and Damariscotta could consolidate and become Newcotta or Damariscastle. You could then eliminate one town manager.
It hasn’t worked out well for Howland.
I think if you were to look at the PCSO contract in Howland you’ll find that the town has only been paying for very few hours a week. I will note that the Towns of Hermon, Orrington and Milford have had a very successful program. In fact Milford just approved a 2nd full time position. It has nothing to do with what agency is in charge, it has to do with philosophy. Basically if you hire contract Deputies they need to stay in town, do business and residence checks, be proactive with investigations and traffic enforcement, attend town meetings and functions and be available for calls. If you hire a Deputy and allow him to just hang out in town for a few hours here and there you’re not going to accomplish much. In small towns you need to be active. You need to build trust. Some of the issues you see with contracts are some guys are always wanting to leave town to back people up, its not your job unless it’s and emergency. The town is not paying you to leave 4 times a shift to back up other people. If it’s a hot call out of town then they def. should go because at some point the contract Deputy will need help.
My suggestion would be this. Make sure one of the hired personnel is a Supervisor of some capacity. Allow that person to manage the personnel in regards to daily activity, investigations, complaints, scheduling, etc. Thats person can also be the point of contact with the Council or Town Manager. The supervisor works days Monday through Friday which maintains consistency. The others fill in the rest of the work hours.
Or, just keep your police department.
Limestone went to the sheriffs office in 2005 and the following year found that the cost was higher than if they had stayed with their own police department. The community found that they lost good officers and also the personalized services they provided such as, welfare checks on elderly residents, business checks and house watches and especially the relationship of the officers with the citizens. They went back to their own department in 2006 and have stayed with that since. Their board of selectman recently tried to illegally terminate the chief of police, but the community stood up and said no way. Hope that whats going on with the department in Damariscotta isn’t politically motivated.
This is a union busting technique, pure and simple. The Damariscotta PD joined a union in late 2011, and are STILL without a contract. The town is not negotiating in good faith. And now this suddenly appears. State it for what it is.
Also, reading between the lines in our local paper, the numbers have also been manipulated. Right now, a sergeant’s position is not currently filled, with no plans to hire one. However, the town manager included the cost of the position in his budget figures. So, his cost is a bit misleading. Without the position, the numbers are so close as to be negligible.Damariscotta is a large enough town, with a good number of banks and businesses that need a local department. Not to mention all the other crime. I ask of Sheriff Brackett, how would you have felt when you were Chief of Police in Damariscotta if this was going on????
Excellent points.
The Sheriff has not said where he is going to find 5 full-time deputies to work soley for the town of Damariscotta. You know no one who currently works for Lincoln County would volunteer to work for only one town. Therefore the Sheriff would have to hire 5 new rookies with no experience or any personal connection to the town itself. What happens when there is an “emergency” somewhere else in the county and the “Damariscotta deputy” has to be pulled from town to help assist somewhere else? Damariscotta would have 5 brand new deputies with very little experience or connection to the town. No one currently working for the county would volunteer for such a duty. The town would give up all its rights to its law enforcement matters and would have no say in how a county deputy would provide law enforcement to the town. This is obviously a political move not a financial one because does anyone actually think they will see a savings in their tax bill?