Rampant drug abuse throughout Maine, a resurgence of the “sovereign citizen movement,” and workplace safety were among the topics discussed by county officials who flocked to Boothbay Harbor for the annual Convention of Maine Counties last week. 

The event, catered to those employed in county governments across Maine, ended with a final speech on prison reform given by noted Massachusetts attorney F. Lee Bailey. 

The event was made possible largely through corporate sponsorship, according to Lincoln County administrator John O'Connell.

The event gave county commissioners, staff and other officials the opportunity to convene, to learn and to discuss the challenges facing their jobs in an ever-shifting environment. While a lecture on prison reform could be linked to many of the topics discussed at the convention, county staff took away much more. 

From sheriff's departments to the registry of deeds, people have sought to find a balance in their jobs as new technologies and trends emerge and as a society under stress impacts daily progress under tightened budgets. 

In fact, “Finding the Balance” was this year's theme for the conference held at the Spruce Point Inn Sept.5-7. 

“We're always trying to do more with less,” Maine County Commissioners Association Executive Director Tim Leet said.

Leet attended a number of presentations, all of which he and others found helpful and that pointed to the overall issue of funding.

Sheriff's departments contend with budget limits as they seek resources to substantiate evidence and face roadblocks in state bureaucracy, according to Lincoln County Sheriff's Deputy Mark Bridgham. 

Bridgham and Detective Sergeant Andrew Pease gave a presentation on bath salts and other synthetic drugs.

The state has identified 20 different varieties of the synthetic drugs that law enforcement officials define under the general term “bath salts,” in addition to synthetic cannababoids called “spice.” 

In order to use seized drugs in court, officers have to send samples to the state crime lab in Augusta. Pease said this takes time and money, but the ripple effect of violence from some drug users inflicted on officers and first responders results in other costs. 

The actions of some “sovereign citizens,” people who reject the authority of traditional governments (local, state and federal) have caused a stir in southern Maine, prompting the FBI to give a presentation on the subject. 

Registries of Deeds throughout the state were issued a court order preventing certain residents of Limerick from filing documents without court approval. According to Lincoln County register Rebecca Wotton, the residents were fighting foreclosure and had flooded a local office with paperwork, allegedly in an attempt to logjam the process. 

Two FBI agents gave a presentation to commissioners, registers and others about sovereign citizens. The agents explained what documents county staff may encounter and the potential costs county governments could incur. The Joint Terrorism Task Force of the FBI has issued warnings about “extremist sovereign citizens” in other states. 

According to agents Todd DiFede and Steven Kimball, the two motivating factors behind the actions of sovereign citizens are ideologically-based and for financial gain. Counties can incur expenses associated with document filings, lawsuits and added staff hours, but the FBI reports that some law enforcement officers have been threatened and even killed by extremist sovereign citizens.

County staff attended numerous other lectures and discussions on such topics as: employment law; cyber security; HIPPA privacy standards and healthcare protection; and the Incident Command System, which is used by emergency management agencies to organize disaster response among firefighters, law enforcement and emergency medical service personnel. 

Bailey addressed the recidivism rate, the rate at which people return to correctional facilities after their release, in his lecture on prison reform. 

“The recidivism rate is the area in which you and everybody involved in the economy in Maine failed over and over again,” he said, as he told how a work-release program got its start. “And although there is no way to eradicate it, there are ways to reduce it.”

Bailey introduced his guests who have been involved in programs to get inmates to work when released and to keep people from heading back to prison. Bailey has been working with Waterville attorney John Nale in the Amicus program, to train inmates in work-related skills. Nale is chairman of the Maine State Prison Industries Advisory Council. Bailey also introduced his business partner Debbie Elliott, also an integral force in the work-release programs.

The recidivism rate is hovering around 20 percent, Bailey said as he addressed the attentive crowd of county officials, and support of such programs will help to lower that figure.

Regarding sex offenders, he said, “This is a tough group.” Bailey described the offense as a disease and the context of his speech indicated that the only way to prevent these offenses from continuing is to scare offenders into behaving themselves. He introduced Mark Teceno of Portland-based Forensic Polygraph Service and recommended the polygraph test as an effective way to deal with sex offenders. 

Bailey fielded a few questions from the audience following his speech. One audience member posed a scenario of two homeless brothers who grew up in the same environment but who took very different paths in life: one got a job and raised a family while the other brother took to a life of crime. The question was to what extent criminal conduct is a product of genetics and to what extent it is a product of environment. In his response, Bailey said one brother made it over the threshold of self-confidence and one had not.

“In my experience, every clumsy, bum criminal that I've had to deal with had at his root a lack of self-confidence,” he said.

The conference covered many other topics for county officials, and ended with a lecture on law enforcement. 

Leet and several others worked to plan this year's conference, but credits much of its success to Lincoln County staff, principally Lincoln County administrator John O'Connell and deputy administrator Deborah Tibbetts. 

Leet believed that every Maine county was represented at the conference.