Lincoln County Commissioners hired Megan McLaughlin as county planner Feb. 5. She starts Feb. 11. McLaughlin was offered the job last month but requested a second meeting with the hiring committee to clarify several issues before County Administrator Carrie Kipfer felt she could bring the recommendation to the full board. McLaughlin lives in Woolwich, and is currently the associate planner in Old Orchard Beach.

Commissioners also approved the hire of Edith Dersham of Bath as Probate Clerk. Dersham most recently worked at Camden National Bank.

The Department of Administration and Financial Services submitted a counterproposal for the space it are renting in the old jail facility, in the basement of the Sheriff’s Department. The county had offered an increase of 50 cents per square foot and a two-year lease; the DAFS offered 25 cents per square foot and a two-year lease. The commissioners accepted the counterproposal.

Updating lighting and more

Commissioners approved an order for lighting fixture replacement at the Planning Commission, as the lighting changes from old fluorescent tubes to energy efficient LED lighting. This change will require an electrician. Kipfer is looking into possible funding through Efficiency Maine. The contract with Burgess Technologies has been approved for $3,835; and funding provided by the county to Coastal Counties Workforce Board will remain with the board rather than being refunded to the county. The county had donated $2,500 to assist the Board during its lawsuit with the LePage administration. The Board won the suit and will receive back funding. The remaining funds will be used for worker training. The county will also enter into a maintenance and supply contract to support desktop printers and large copiers.

The Sheriff’s Department received approval for a purchase order for $3,400 in online training, and received the Shellfish contracts for Newcastle and Damariscotta, the last two towns to turn in  theirs. The department received approval to get bids for training ammunition and three new vehicles.

One of the counties that contracts with Two Bridges Regional Jail, Penobscot County, is rethinking its plans for a county jail, according to Sheriff Todd Brackett. Initially, the plan was to renovate an aging YMCA, then to raze it and build new, but those plans appear to be on hold. Since Penobscot County sends a large number of inmates to TBRJ, Brackett said the jail authority will have to try to see what that means for TBRJ and for Penobscot County.

Melissa Temple of the Lincoln County Office of Emergency Management said most of the funding from the 2017 windstorm has been collected from the federal government. Some towns are receiving more  funding from the federal government; those funds are not yet in, nor are the expected state emergency management funds. In total for Lincoln County, the award was $419,670.01. The amount collected so far is $305,647. The state is expected to supply $62,950 and municipal/county matches are $41,967. The rest of the federal share is $9,104.81. Temple said that because the county stepped up immediately to help the towns, Lincoln County recouped a good percentage of its losses.

The towns with the highest amount of losses and thus, the greatest share in the awards, were Wiscasset, with $63,671.88, and Boothbay, at $68,772.16.

Work on the Project Lifesaver policy was tabled, but Temple said that owing to a story in the Wiscasset Newspaper, one more client has been brought on board. The first two clients were small children with autism; the new client is over 90 and suffering from dementia, she said.

Two emergency exercises were done this month, at Lincoln Home and with the Amateur Radio team. In the worst case, she said, the amateur team learned that if the data systems go down in an emergency, email can be transmitted through an antenna run by the HAM radio team. Commissioners approved a plan to install the antenna, currently in the attic, on the outside of the courthouse tower. The cost of $6,025.29 would be made up by in-kind funds that stem from volunteer hours the radio team has accumulated.