Joint Workshop set for Monday

Carrie Jones

Jul 23, 2025

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Thrive Juice Bar & Kitchen.

BAR HARBOR AND MOUNT DESERT—Bar Harbor’s town council and the Mount Desert Select Board will hold a rare joint meeting Monday, July 28, to discuss the next steps in potentially fully consolidating their police departments.

The meeting, which begins at 6:30 p.m. at the Mount Desert Town Office, is a public workshop and will also be available via Zoom. While the public can attend, comment is not expected to be taken during this session.

Mount Desert Town Manager Durlin Lunt said Wednesday, “I believe that this is the first joint Selectboard/Council meeting, at least during my tenure.”

The workshop’s agenda states that it is a “joint workshop between Mount Desert Selectboard and the Bar Harbor Council to discuss the next steps in police consolidation.”

A proposal written by Bar Harbor and Mount Desert Police Chief David Kerns outlines a plan to fully integrate all police and dispatch personnel under Bar Harbor’s administration while maintaining existing service levels in both communities.

”This proposal outlines the full integration of all police and dispatch personnel under the Town of Bar Harbor’s administration while maintaining existing service levels for both communities. The objective is to streamline administrative functions, eliminate duplication, and create a unified personnel and management structure without altering service delivery,” the June 13 document begins.

The departments have been sharing services for more than a decade. Now, they might be going further.

“We wish to continue the evolution of the police sharing agreement. As you know, it began with the chief, expanded to patrol zones. Same marked police vehicles, common uniforms and badges,” Lunt said. “Last year all command officers were placed in one department. This made sense operationally as well as ensuring that they were paid the same wages and benefits which could be a bone of contention otherwise. We would like to discuss if this should now apply to the patrol officers as well.”

Since 2013, the towns have shared services and some positions. The towns first shared a police chief, and since then have integrated services while also maintaining positions that were officially within one town or the other. Since then, the towns have shared its records system, computerized dispatch services, and other aspects of call response and record keeping. It operates on one radio frequency and submits reports to the Maine court system as one department.

”Having interconnected dispatch centers allows us to complete most dispatch operations from either of the physical locations and provides total redundancy in services except for access to the Maine Electronic Telecommunications & Routing Operations (METRO) system,” the proposal reads.

The departments also can man either police station lobby even if understaffed for dispatchers with publicly accessible phones at each lobby that ring to the other location’s dispatch.

Each town, however, owns its own cruisers with operating budgets in both towns.

Currently, the towns cost share for the chief, captain, mental health liaison, administrative assistant, and public safety operations coordinator positions. All except the public safety operations coordinator are employed by Bar Harbor. All of the sergeant positions, which are supervisory, are Bar Harbor employees but one is funded by Mount Desert.

According to the memo, “MD (Mount Desert) may see reduced costs for insurances, workers compensation, other personnel related expenses. Bar Harbor may assume increased financial responsibility in these areas.”

Next steps would likely include having all positions under the Bar Harbor budget (with workman’s compensation, health insurance and other benefits) and cost sharing with Mount Desert.

A full integration is unlikely to create cost savings, but would potentially decrease Mount Desert’s expenses for overhead. The reverse could potentially be true for Bar Harbor unless the cost-sharing agreement was tweaked between the two towns.

However, those details have not been hammered out or discussed at the council and select board levels.

Officers for both towns can patrol both towns as part of their normal duties. Because of the island’s mutual aid agreements, all the island towns can respond to emergencies when necessary. There are 16 officers in Bar Harbor and four in Mount Desert, an equal number of dispatchers in both towns (four) and all the administrative staff and support personnel are currently employed in Bar Harbor.

The proposal states that “police patrols, emergency response, and dispatch operations will maintain current service levels; officers and dispatchers will continue to serve both communities; Mount Desert and Bar Harbor will retain its community police presence and engagement efforts.”

The Bar Harbor Police Chief will oversee the staff, supervisory roles would remain, and “dispatch operations will remain under their current structure,” the proposal reads.

“Officers will continue their direct engagement in both communities,” it continues. “Mount Desert and Bar Harbor residents will experience no reduction in visibility or service levels. Existing community outreach programs will continue as structured.”

The workshop is open to the public in person and will also be on Zoom.

Disclaimer: Carrie Jones was once a part-time dispatcher in Mount Desert a long time ago.

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LINKS TO LEARN MORE

The packet and agenda

To attend via Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/248566175?pwd=RmozZjBOVWhtUTQrRXR5QzFEZEEyQT09

Meeting ID: 248 566 175

Password: 919872

Phone: +1 312 626 6799

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