Androscoggin County commissioners agreed to spend more than $10,000 last week for orthoimagery services with the Maine GeoLibrary to pay for aerial mapping of municipalities.

Maine GeoLibrary is a state agency that expands and promotes aerial imagery for cities and towns for uses like GIS mapping and E911 for accurate and up-to-date mapping of roads and homes.

“The basic premise is that (municipalities) can have this imagery as an underlayment for their digital parcel files, wetlands delineation, zoning, if you have it, so that you get a very good current image of what your town is like,” Joeseph Young, the executive director of Maine GeoLibrary, said during the Dec. 6 meeting.

The photos are taken each spring from an airplane with a base-level imagery of 18-inch resolution. If needed, cities and towns can contract with the agency for more detailed images of, perhaps, a 3- or 6-inch resolution.

Auburn City Manager Peter Crichton, who was formerly the manager for Cumberland County for 18 years, spoke in favor of the expenditure.

“Of all the things that we did (in Cumberland County) with municipalities, this was one of the things that was the most well-received by the communities,” Crichton said.

Maine GeoLibrary asks each county to pay for one-third of the cost to map each county. For Androscoggin County, the total cost is more than $30,000 to map the county’s 568 square miles.

The item was not budgeted by the commissioners. County Administrator Larry Post proposed taking money from the Professional Services line in the commissioners’ own account. Used primarily for legal fees, the county has spent less than $1,000 of the $60,000 budgeted for the current year. 

With $15,000 of that money scheduled to be placed in a county reserve account, Post said that was the logical place to fund the $10,223 to pay for the services.

The motion passed 6-1 with only Noel Madore of Lewiston opposing the expenditure.

In other business:

• Commissioners voted 6-1 to increase the sheriff and chief deputy salaries by $5,000 each beginning in 2019. Sheriff Eric Samson requested the action now to avoid having politics entering the budgeting process during next years’s election. The sheriff said he will seek re-election;

Post said the higher salaries were warranted. Only one Maine county pays its sheriff and chief deputy less than Androscoggin County. Isaiah Lary of Wales cast the dissenting vote; and

• Commissioner Zachary Maher of Poland was selected to serve as the county’s representative on the Maine County Commission Association. Madore will serve as alternate.