HOULTON, Maine — Two weeks after a proposal was first detailed publicly, an even larger crowd of citizens gathered at the Town Office Monday evening to provide input on a plan that could eliminate dispatching services at the Houlton Police Department and contract them out to a communication center operated by either the Aroostook County Sheriff’s Office or the Maine State Police.
Approximately 25 people attended the 90-minute Town Council meeting, which is the second time that the group has met to discuss the communications processing proposal. Aroostook County Sheriff Darrell Crandall was in attendance to take questions from councilors, as was Clifford Wells, director of the Consolidated Emergency Communications Bureau at the Maine Department of Public Safety.
Four Houlton Police Department dispatchers would lose their jobs if the council votes to support the plan.
The idea to move HPD dispatching services off-site was initially raised at a council budget workshop in October 2014, according to Town Manager Butch Asselin, who presented a report outlining estimated savings, costs and one-time expenses to councilors at a Sept. 14 meeting.
According to the document, it would cost the town an estimated $42,578 annually to have dispatching services provided by the sheriff’s office, and $47,844 if handled by the state police. The town would save $148,797 the first year by using the sheriff’s office dispatching service and $145,324 the second year, according to the report. It estimates that with the state police, the town would save $122,531 the first year and $140,058 the second.
With four full-time dispatchers, HPD provides 24-hour communication services for police, the Houlton Fire Department and the Houlton Ambulance Department and handles approximately 7,200 calls for service annually, according to the report.
Houlton Police Chief Joe McKenna is opposed to outsourcing dispatching services, he said, not only because of the job losses, but also because of the potential loss of control over dispatch operations to a larger agency. Another concern was that if the local dispatch service was shut down, the HPD lobby would close with it, losing what he called a “safe haven” for lost children and pets.
Alison Gooding, a community education specialist for Healthy Aroostook in Houlton, said during Monday’s council meeting that she opposes such changes at the police department. Gooding said that HPD is one of a number of local departments in Aroostook County where residents can take unused or unwanted prescriptions throughout the year so that they can be safely disposed of.
Gooding said she feared that if the HPD lobby closed, residents would lose that resource.
Sheriff Crandall told councilors that he stood by the position he made clear in a letter to McKenna in May, when he advised against the town eliminating its service and hiring it out. In the letter he stated that an agency with the size and call volume of HPD was “better suited to retain your own dedicated dispatch service.”
Wells said the comments he was hearing were all similar to ones he had heard before in other communities. He told councilors that the state police had dispatched for towns both larger and smaller than Houlton and that among those of comparable size presently served are Fort Fairfield, Washburn and Ashland.
Councilor John White asked Crandall and Wells if their dispatch facilities, which both are located in Houlton, accepted unused or unwanted prescription medication. Both men said that they did.
White also asked if both would be open 24 hours a day in order to serve as safe havens, and again was given a positive response.
Phil Bernaiche, also of Houlton, said he too was against eliminating dispatching services, telling councilors that he could not understand why they wanted to make the move. Bernaiche said Monday evening he felt it was “unfair” to do that to some of the employees, some of whom had been there for a number of years.
A vote on the matter is expected within the next month.
