Bill Whitten, Assistant Cumberland County Manager Guest Speaker
September 9th Meeting- Candy introduced Bill Whitten, Assistant County Manager who filled in for Peter Crichton, County Manager.
The Brewer High School alumnus graduated from the University of Maine and went through Officer Candidate School with the Marines. However, an accident prevented him from ever flying an F4 Phantom Jet that he wants to ride to this day. Next, he began a career in sales becoming sales manager at WABI-TV at age 25! Later, he moved into sales at WGME-TV. Since 1980, he has served on the Board of the Cumberland County Civic Center and served as chairman. This led to his current position.
He began quizzing us about the number of county employees. To most everybody’s surprise the number exceeds 450. With 14 different departments, the budget exceeds $45,000,000. About half of the budget goes to the jail where they average 475 “guests at their hotel”. They like to say that they run the largest mental health institute in the State of Maine! 90% of the inmates are on some sought of drugs. One of the biggest problems is inmates who get released that purposely get rearrested so that they can sell drugs in the jail. This is a real issue for them.
Recent legislation combining all the policies for all the county jails has Bill rewriting current policies to bring them into conformance. About 100 sheriff deputies work at the jail while another 100 are on patrol.
The county operates an emergency communications center within an old 1950’s bunker in Windham. In addition they provide 911 dispatch services for 19 communities. Gorham who joined 4 years ago, has saved $350,000 per year.
They are seeking a $200,000 Target grant to fund a study of reusing the old “Mountain Division” rail line. Approximately 14 businesses between Bridgton and Portland have said that they would use it along with other busineses who said that they would relocate by the rail line to utilize it.
The facilities department manages 5 buildings including the Civic Center, jail, and court house.
They are doing regional assessing for many communities such as Cumberland, Falmouth, and Yarmouth providing uniformity and saving those communities money.