Androscoggin County deputies flee fungus, move to new offices

Androscoggin County sheriff’s deputies were on the move Wednesday up to the first and second floors of the Androscoggin County Building in Auburn from their troubled basement offices.

An air quality test done in the basement of the 170-year-old building where sheriff’s deputies and the criminal division detectives worked showed elevated fungus counts. The test was done by the union representing the deputies.

The move was put off a week so everything was in order, county Administrator Jeff Chute said.

Initially, the detectives were going to move to the District Attorney’s Office in Lewiston, but they decided to stay at the county building so deputies could stay together, Chute said.

As of the end of Wednesday, detectives in the Criminal Investigation Division will be moved into their temporary quarters on the second floor and the deputies will be settled in a room on the first floor.

Chute, who is on vacation, said Wednesday that the facilities manager told him everything was going smoothly.

“As with any move there has been a few snags but nothing we haven’t been able to overcome at this point. It is still a work in progress,” Sheriff Eric Samson wrote in an email early Wednesday afternoon.

“The patrol deputies will occupy a former file room used by the courts on the first floor and our detectives will be using the former commissioners’ room as their offices on the second floor. Things are still being moved … at this time and some set up is occurring as well.”

While this is said to be a temporary relocation, county commissioners have yet to make a decision on where the Sheriff’s Office will be located permanently.

In 2022, the county purchased the former Evergreen Subaru building in Auburn for $4.5 million as a potential new home for the Sheriff’s Office. But since spending $200,000 on surveys and engineering designs, the commissioners have balked at moving forward with the plan, rejecting a proposed $29 million bond last year to renovate the building at 774 Center St. as too expensive for taxpayers.

In February, the majority of commissioners again declared that the cost of the project, lowered to $26 million, was still too high.

The Androscoggin County Building at 2 Turner St. houses the Sheriff’s Office and other county staff. A letter sent by the Androscoggin County Employees Association to commissioners in February complained about the standstill on the proposed project and the conditions of the current building.