WABI - Millions of dollars in funding will be coming to counties and municipalities through the American Rescue Act.
Dozens of community organizations in Penobscot County are joining together to call for investments in chronic and worsening problems in the region.
“A lot of times, the most vulnerable are the ones who are given the last thought.” says Sean Faircloth, Executive Director of Together Place. “That’s why this coalition has united, and come together. So we are all for one and one for all.”
What may be the largest collaboration ever of community organizations in Penobscot County was announced in Bangor Thursday morning near Pickering Square. The group is over 30 organizations strong.
There were 173 inmates in the jail on Tuesday with an additional 42 boarded out at other facilities, according to Sheriff Troy Morton. He also said that 196 defendants awaiting trial were being supervised in the community by Maine Pretrial Services, a private firm.
The Maine Department of Corrections, which licenses county jails, has given the sheriff until mid-November to get the population down to 157 or risk losing its license.
Overcrowding and a recent COVID-19 outbreak at the jail shut down intake at the facility, forcing local law enforcement to bail arrestees from police stations or to ask jails in adjacent counties to take in all but the most violent offenders, Brewer Public Safety Director Jason Moffitt told commissioners Tuesday.
Moffitt and every member of the Brewer City Council attended Tuesday’s county commissioners meeting to demand that the county solve the overcrowding problem at the jail quickly.