At the Oct. 18 meeting of the Lincoln County Commissioners, the contract with the Addiction Resource Center (ARC) which had been postponed twice, was finally approved.

The cost of the new contract is $61,260, which is up from about $55,000 last year. The new budget includes additional hours for the Two Bridges Regional Jail counselor, Bill Ellsworth, currently working 20 hours per week. He will have 25 hours in the new contract. Chief Deputy Ken Mason said the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office has applied for a $5,000 grant from the Department of Corrections to offset some of the addiction assistance costs. “They want to give it to us,” he said. “They like what we’re doing.” If the department receives the grant, the net cost of the new contract will be only slightly higher than last year’s, at $56,260.

Mason also said the Sheriff’s Office had received two letters of thanks from officials in Dresden for assistance in the recent fire at Freedom House. “Of course, we were just doing our job,” Mason said, “and working together with other agencies. But it was nice to be recognized.”

Mason said the Sheriff’s Office came in just under budget on firearms replacement. The new service weapons replaced earlier models, which were traded in and brought in a little more money than expected.

Tod Hartung of Lincoln County EMS said his agency would be participating in a security drill at Maine Yankee later in the week. Overall, calls for service continue to be higher than last year at this time, and Hartung said some of the difference was probably animal control calls, which the county picked up from towns earlier this year.

Hartung said some of the increase is from false alarms. He said Sheriff Todd Brackett was attempting to get the towns to change their ordinances so that businesses and individual homeowners whose alarm systems trip repeatedly and require police or a deputy to respond could be fined if they fail to fix the system. “We know the addresses of the places where this happens,” he said. “It’s a nuisance for the neighborhood, and we have to send someone to check, because the first time we ignored it, there would really be a fire or something.”

The commissioners received several proposals for the county’s audit, and tabled the discussion until the next meeting to give them time to review the proposals.

Carrie Kipfer, county administrator, said a contract had finally been negotiated for the rental of space at the Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission building for the Small Business Development Commission, which had been paying $150 per month to use the space. Coastal Economic Development, Inc., the parent organization of SBDC, will pay $350 per month, retroactive to January 1.