ROCKLAND – The Knox County Commissioners met Tuesday, March 21, in a rescheduled session after Tuesday, March 14, was cancelled due to snow that closed the Knox County Court House. Those present included Knox County Administrator Andrew Hart, and Commissioners Richard Parent, Jr., and Ed Glaser, while Commissioner Sharyn Pohlman participated via Zoom.  

Hart started off the session by welcoming everyone to the ninth year of awarding milestones to Knox County employees for their length of service to the county.

Hart made presentations to 16 employees. Though some were not able to attend, a complete list of employees, years served, and their position is below. (Watch the meeting here)

“Looking across the state, I believe Knox County is one of the top counties in terms of the employees that we have and the level of service we have with those employees,” said Hart.

That shows by the number of  years employees stay on the job with the county.

“A big shout-out to the commissioners and the organization that we have,” he said. 

Hart introduced Knox County’s new Human Resources Manager, Amber Christie. Christie has been on the job for 30 days. 

Action items on the commissioner’s agenda included approval of an act to authorize optional arrest powers to the Sheriff and Deputies (Act to Approve and Authorize Optional Arrest Powers to the Sheriff and Deputies).

Knox County Sheriff Patrick Polky said the additional powers reflected Maine Legislature’s proactive position on how to solve personnel problems. 

“The idea within the statue,” said Polky, “is that the commission can give the authority to the sheriff and the deputies that under extreme, narrow situations like a felony offense, if that deputy happened to be in another county investigating crime or just happened to be in training in another place, that if it met this finite rule-setting they can take action.”

Polky said that the public expects to see a law enforcement officer to act. 

“They see you standing there,” Polky said. “They don’t see you as say a Knox deputy in Penobscot County, they see you as a police officer in a crime situation, if you will.”

Polky said it enables the officer, so that if the public expects you to act, you can act.

 “The commission approving it allows the Maine Municipal Association insurance, and workmen’s comprehensive insurance, [to] apply to you because you took action in those situations,” he said. “That’s really what the commission is approving is that if you take action it would be as if you were working in Knox County as a police officer doing those functions.”

And there’s another side to the coin. Officers from other Maine Counties that would happen to be in Knox County can act in those situations.

“There are rules of notification,” said Polky. “Say a deputy from Lincoln County came up to Knox for training and during that training or on the way home, or here, they saw something happening that they could take action on. There are caveats of making notification to that jurisdiction that say, ‘hey, just so you know, I took this action.’”

Polky said the officer would do that anyway because they are going to look for that support. 

“The reason it came up with the sheriffs’. in particular, in our discussion is we’re all having trouble finding people to work,” said Polky. “You are in my county, you do make an arrest, I may not have a resource to help you. You may have to take care of that arrest yourself, thanks for calling, can you bring them to my jail please because I can’t get anybody there to help you.”

He added: “It’s not a carte blanche go be a cop anywhere. It’s a finite set of rules that if you are in a situation where the public expects you to act, you can act and you’re going to be covered.” 

The commission approved the motion 3-0. 

Reach Chris Wolf at news@penbaypilot.com