History The Carrabassett Valley Police Department was
formed on April 4th, 1988 because the community felt that they were not
being serviced effectively by the two Police agencies that had
jurisdiction, the Maine State Police and the Franklin County Sheriffs'
Department. Chief Ronald Moody was appointed the first and only member
of the Department. At this time Sugarloaf Mountain Corporation
maintained a Security department that operated on Sugarloaf Mountain
and responded to security issues that concerned that property. The
Security force was a uniformed team that was for resort security and
had no police powers outside of Sugarloaf. Both agencies functioned
independently for a short time and in early 1990 the Security
department started training to do law enforcement functions as well as
their other duties. Dispatching for the Police Department was initially
done by Valley Communications (Ron Morin) and later the Franklin County
Sheriffs Department in Farmington.
About that same, Sugarloaf Mountain Corporation
management and Town of Carrabassett Valley officials felt that it was
counter-productive to have two agencies in Town performing the same
function and proposed a "merger" of sorts. The outcome of the merger
was that the Police Chief would also be the Security Director (an
uncompensated position) of Sugarloaf Mountain Corporation and that the
Sugarloaf Security staff would report to him. This would insure that
the continuity of investigations and other situations could flow both
off and on Sugarloaf property. Another portion of the merger was to
take back emergency dispatch from Farmington and staff our own
Communications Center, so that we would maintain 'local control" of our
911 and other emergency calls. Sugarloaf and the Town of Carrabassett
Valley combined funding so that this merger would be viable. All of the
Security personnel are Sugarloaf employees and the officers are
appointed as Special Police officers for the Town so that they are able
to enforce the law throughout Town. The Police Officers and Public
Safety Dispatchers are State Certified and trained to the State of
Maine standard. This has been a very successful merger and I know of no others like it in the State of Maine.
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