Lincoln County Registrar of Probate Catherine Moore received an award for passport processing from the State Department following an inspection of Lincoln County’s process last month. The Probate Office typically processes about 300 passports per year, she said.

The Communications Department hired Brendan Parker of Dresden as a dispatcher. Parker is a volunteer firefighter with the Dresden Fire Department.

The Emergency Management Agency got permission to seek about $74,000 in Homeland Security grant monies. About $66,000 would go to the conversion to digital radio for Lincoln County law enforcement.  The rest would go to hazardous material handling, search and rescue, and the Amateur Radio Team.

The state also informed the commissioners that a local bridge for which the county is responsible – the Big Bog Bridge in Hibbett’s Gore – needs guardrails on its approaches, and that this needs to be addressed as soon as practical.

“Neglect of these deficiencies may result in a diminished function of the bridge through load posting or even closure,” an engineer for the Maine Department of Transportation wrote after inspecting the bridge. The state also increased the money it sent to the county for addressing needs in unincorporated areas such as Hibbetts Gore to $896.