Who's minding the runaway cost of Hancock County- 30% increase for commissioners, staff?

3 MDI towns pay for sheriffs they don't use; Tremont wants out

MOUNT DESERT - The four towns on MDI with only 18 percent of the Hancock County’s population are assessed 37.3 percent of its operating budget even though they don’t use all of its services.

Ellsworth, the county seat with a population of 8,500, or 15 percent of Hancock County, was assessed only 7.93 percent in 2023.

Police services would be the primary example of such largesse to the county from MDI towns, Bar Harbor, Southwest Harbor and Mount Desert, which paid $1,082,428 in 2023 to support the county’s sheriff’s department and its dispatchers, even though they have their own police and dispatchers.

The county’s 911 emergency line is the only shared service used by the three towns. There is no breakdown for the cost of that single service.

One former MDI town official called it an “outright subsidy” of the sheriff’s office with no return benefit. Imagine what MDI could do with that money for our housing needs?

The contorted finances and entangled bureaucracy reminded me of Boston, when I was at the Globe and on any given day could interact with the Boston Police, the MBTA police, the State Police, Suffolk County Sheriff, Massachusetts Port Authority Police, Housing Authority Police, School Police, Boston Park Rangers and any one of about 50 college public safety departments.

Still, the double dipping by Hancock County is not unusual in Maine - to charge towns for services not performed.

The county finances do not have the kind of rigor as in the municipalities where town councils, select boards, warrant committees and voters at the annual meeting all have a shot at each item.

Instead, every October, the county holds four listening sessions from a select group of town representatives. The three elected county commissioners have the final say and rarely has a budget been questioned publicly. The county simply sends out an invoice and the towns dutifully pay them.

The county commissioners draw a small salary, get health care and retirement benefits.

The QSJ could not get an answer to why the commissioners gave themselves, the county administrator and two staffers a whopping 30.11 percent increase last year in salary and benefits. See Page 24 of the county budget.

Now comes tiny Tremont to question whether it’s getting a fair deal. It is the only MDI town without its own police force. It has been using the contracted services of the county sheriff’s department for decades, and for all those fraught years listened to complaints from its citizenry.

Nonetheless, in 2019, its citizens voted overwhelmingly to stay with the sheriff’s services instead of partnering with Southwest Harbor.

But Tremont is growing and there is increasing frustration with the current arrangement, said select board member McKenzie Jewett.

The town contracted for 45 hours of patrol a week, but that almost never happens, Town Manager Jesse Dunbar told the select board Dec. 4 after Jewett suggested the town seek alternatives.

Dunbar said the sheriff’s patrols rarely give the town more than 30 hours a week.

Tremont has attempted at least three times to seek help from other MDI towns. But owing to a salamgundi of jealously guarded local control, Tremont has never successfully convinced any other town to share resources.

It’s difficult to imagine Tremont is the only disaffected customer of the county sheriff’s office and how it responds to an increasing volume of OUIs, burglaries, domestic violence, traffic accidents and drug use. Thankfully, in the most serious crime - unintended deaths - the state police has ultimate authority. The state police is also a valuable backup when the sheriff ‘s deputy is unable to respond to other calls.

It ll begs the question of what is the optimal model for first response services on MDI.

Last Tuesday, the Southwest Harbor select board authorized Police Chief John Hall to respond to the request from Tremont to provide police coverage. Tremont is having the same discussion with the Bar Harbor/Mount Desert police department.

Dunbar reminded me that Tremont shares borders with both Southwest Harbor and Mount Desert. Under recently retired Police Chief Jim Willis, Bar Harbor police on Town Hill could just as easily respond to a call in Pretty Marsh as a cruiser from Northeast Harbor. In many cases, Bar Harbor police responded sooner. Seal Cove in Tremont would be an easier reach for a cruiser from Pretty Marsh than one from Southwest Harbor.

So is there a bigger opportunity to rethink law enforcement holistically on the island?

In 2019, an FBI report on “Crime in the United States” showed that the most efficient use of police were in communities between 10,000 and 50,000 in population, and not in towns under 10,000 and in cities over 250,000.

In New England, towns under 10,000 reported 2.8 officers per 1,000 and cities above 250,000 had 4.2. Between 10,000 and 50,000, they were 1.9.

Full-time Law Enforcement Officers per 1,000 occupants. Source: FBI

Then there is the practical consideration. Southwest Harbor has budgeted six police officers, or 3.4 per 1,000 residents. But for several years now, it has been able to staff only four. Can it reasonably expect to staff six officers regularly given the cost of housing?

The combined budget of Bar Harbor and Mount Desert calls for 19 full-time officers for a population of 7,635, or 2.5 officers per 1,000. Adding Tremont’s 1,597 residents and SWH’s 1,756 for a total of 11,000 would put MDI into the sweet spot of the FBI analysis. Even when the summer population balloons, MDI would still fare well.

And then there are the ancillary cost associated with law enforcement, such as dispatch.

Bar Harbor and Mount Desert have seven full-time dispatchers and a “few other FTE civilian support staff,” stated Chief David Kerns in an email. The two towns operate separate dispatch operations except overnight, when Mount Desert shuts down because it couldn’t find workers.

The mechanics of a single dispatch serving the entire island are already in place, said Willis.

“It's possible because of all the work we did over the last 10 years to make it possible. It was quite intentional.”

When Bar Harbor and Mount Desert merged in 2013, “One of the problems we had was we didn't have radio communications across town lines.”

Federal FCC regulations at the time did not allow licensing of frequencies to do that, Willis said,

But the National Park Service isn't regulated by the FCC.

“They have their own radio frequencies that are managed by the federal government.,” Willis said. “And after years of talking, the park gave us two of those federal frequencies to use - one for law enforcement and one for fire and EMS.”

“And there's still the third one that the park uses that we have installed in our dispatch because we dispatch for the park overnight quite frequently.”

Despite the streamlining, the old ways die hard.

“Even though we have that set up and running (shared frequency), everyone kind of likes to have their own frequency.”

That means one dispatcher must call out to different parties on different frequencies to ensure the message is relayed to all. That takes time. And time is a killer in a public safety emergency.

“It’s political will and municipal identity. These towns like to have their own dispatch. It may not be the most cost effective way to do it but they like it,” Willis said.

Southwest Harbor has the highest per capita cost for law enforcement on MDI and the least road surface to cover. It has always been protective of that.

Even if Tremont finds another solution for police coverage it will continue to be on the hook for the subsidy of the sheriff’s office.

In addition to the contract for patrols - $170,820 a year - Tremont, like the other three MDI towns, pays to support the sheriff’s office and the regional dispatch service, $73,767 and $34,568 a year respectively.

The county assessments are based on the towns’ valuations and not on actual usage. Mount Desert had the highest assessment, 15.56 percent of the total even though its population - 2,146 - is less than 4 percent of the county’s. In 2023, Mount Desert paid $1,157,710 to the county, while Bar Harbor paid $947,755.

Bar Harbor Finance Director Sarah Gilbert has been told to expect a 15 percent increase next year to $1,089,918. The county finance office said it could be as high as 16.43 percent.

“The county kicked the can down the road for so many years and failed to keep up with wages,” said one MDI town official. “At one point county jail employees were quitting to work at Walmart.”

The jail and the district attorney, are, of course, true shared services. But even there, Ellsworth’s usage far exceeds that of any town on MDI.

Sheriff Scott Kane did not return numerous calls to discuss the Tremont contract. County administrator Michael Crooker also did not return a phone call for this article. I wanted to ask about his12.63 percent raise last year to $112,350.

An attempt to reach Commissioner Paul Paradis of Bar Harbor by email was also unavailing. Paradis, the longtime Bar Harbor councilman, represents all of MDI on the county board.

Bar Harbor lobsterman among those suing the state over mandated tracking

BAR HARBOR - How much indignity do lobstermen and women have to endure simply to go about the task of showcasing one of the wonders of Maine while trying to earn a living?

After having finally won their case in a federal circuit court that there is no proof their fishing gear is a primary reason for the declining population of endangered Right Whales, now comes the state apparatchiks with another scheme to chip away at this storied fishery - the only one of its kind which has resisted the entreaties of corporate money and is the most sustainable fishery on the planet.

Some factotum in the bowels of a dark chamber in Augusta found some federal money to buy digital trackers for lobster boats to enable the state to “collect the time and position of your vessel once per minute while the vessel is moving. While the vessel is tied up, the tracker collects the time and position of your vessel every 6 hours, until in motion again.”

The mandatory tracking became law on Dec. 15.

In perfectly crafted bureaucratic language, the Maine Department of Marine Resources stated on its website:

“The goal of the addendum is to collect high resolution spatial and temporal data to characterize effort in the federal American lobster and Jonah crab fisheries for management and enforcement needs. These data will improve stock assessment, inform discussions and management decisions related to protected species and marine spatial planning, and enhance offshore enforcement.”

What exactly is “spatial and temporal data?”

Is that a sushi dish?

What about when the captain is below peeing? What can you conclude from a boat going in a circle for three minutes?

Is that spatial and temporal data?

All this didn’t sit well with some lobstermen, who are genetically bred to oppose any outside opinion on how to do their jobs.

Last week five of them, including Jack Cunningham from Bar Harbor, filed suit in federal court.

Lobster fishers are extremely protective of their knowledge of where to set traps, some patterns developed over a lifetime.

The state promised the data would be confidential. “As with the landings information reported to the Department by harvesters and dealers, the spatial information collected through the trackers is designated as confidential through Maine law and regulation.”

Really?

I don’t know about you, but it seems every other week I get a letter saying my personal data has been compromised by some hacker and to go to one of the the services - Experian, Equifax - who seem the only folks benefitting from this.

Why stop at lobstermen and women? Why not tag every waste hauler in the state to see how they dispose of their cargo? How about lumber trucks? Or large-scale aqua farmers like Cooke Seafood?

Memo to DMR Commissioner Patrick Keliher:

Level the playing field.

Make every fishery in Maine follow the same tracking requirement, especially the big guys - the industrial salmon farms like Cooke. Or is that too heavy a political lift?

Here was my article on the DMR’s renewal of Cooke’s permit despite its passive die-off of fish in August 2021.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are being supported by the Maine Sustainable Fishing Foundation, which is raising money for the cause with this online appeal.

For a more detailed reporting of the lawsuit, read the account in the Portland Press Herald.

Recording of Bar Harbor Planning Board meeting

BAR HARBOR - A reader wrote that Wednesday’s Planning Board meeting was an untidy mess. I did not watch the three-hour affair because the Town Hall Streams recording was not posted until Friday afternoon. It was the second time in less than a month that a major board meeting was not streamed live and made immediately available on Town Hall Streams, which is paid for its service by taxpayers.

Here was an account in Bar Harbor Story.