AUBURN — County leaders again Wednesday put off deciding who answers calls for help across most of Androscoggin County.
“I feel bad that I’m asking for more time,” Commissioner Beth Bell said. “But I would like to come up with another proposal.”
The three-member commission planned to have a written proposal this week, a hard document that could be reviewed and voted on March 21. It wasn’t done.
In a two-hour meeting, the three commissioners failed to agree on a future for emergency dispatching in the county.
“Everyone says they want a solution,” Bell said. “But no one is willing to step up to what the true cost is.”
Currently, the county’s dispatch center answers land-line emergency calls for 12 of the county’s 14 towns, serving as a public safety answering point, or PSAP. Calls from Lewiston and Auburn go to the cities’ own center.
The county center communicates with its deputies, police officers in Mechanic Falls, Sabattus and Livermore and with fire departments in seven small towns.
Last week, Commissioner Elaine Makas proposed continuing all those services. She planned to pay for it by charging fees for dispatching to municipal police and fire departments and by charging $2 per capita to every town to answer its emergency calls.
But the fees wouldn’t lift the whole burden on Lewiston and Auburn, whose leaders argue that they shouldn’t pay for the county’s public safety answering point when it has its own.
Commissioners moved away from a plan that would have moved some duties to Lisbon.
“I don’t see how the Lisbon option will ever be at the top of my list,” Bell said. Among her concerns was the county’s lack of control, she said.
However, none of the commissioners were ready Wednesday to rule out any of the options, which also included a merger with Lewiston-Auburn 911.
“I want to keep it here in the county,” Makas said.
Chairman Greenwood said that he, too, favored a county option at the right price.
A decision won’t come before the start of April, Greenwood said.
Bell requested more information on the construction costs that would accompany a remodeled dispatch center in the county courthouse.
“We know the urgency of it,” Bell said. Several of the county’s towns are working on their budget and want the county’s plan and costs. “I’d rather ask for more time than to put something out that I don’t feel is (fully) prepared.”
dhartill@sunjournal.com
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