BELFAST – Waldo County commissioners have approved a building contract for the new regional communications center, and hired a city man as center director.

The commissioners Tuesday approved the $292,000 bid submitted by Birco Inc. of Liberty for construction of the dispatch center building on the county jail site off Miller Street. The commissioners also voted to appoint Owen Smith as director of the center. Smith, a dispatcher with the Belfast Police Department, will receive an annual salary of $36,000.

“I think we’ve got a super-good man for the job,” Sheriff Scott Story told the commissioners. Story heads the regional communications center’s board of directors.

Commissioner Joseph Smith said work on the dispatch center could begin in a matter of days and that the building should be ready for occupancy by early summer. Birco is the same firm that built the town of Liberty’s new fire station and is renovating the county’s probate court room and registrar’s office.

The communications center will be housed in a one-story building with 2,400 square feet of space. It will have four dispatch consoles with state of the art communications equipment and two backup consoles. The center will also have offices and a conference room.

When up and running, the dispatch center will handle all emergency communications and 911 calls in the county. The city of Belfast, which has its own dispatch center, will transfer that function to the regional center. Besides handling Belfast’s emergency services, the center will also dispatch the city’s public works employees.

The regional center has its own board of directors. Because the center is an arm of county government, the center’s budget will be controlled by the county budget committee and commissioners.

Owen Smith was selected from a strong field of candidates, said Story. Smith has work as a Belfast dispatcher for the past decade. Before that, he served on the City Council and was the manager of a printing company. He has a wide range of experience, Story said, and the ability needed to get the communications center on line.

Story said the director will be required to create the center’s policy manual as well as oversee its operations.

“He’ll have a lot of employee issues right off the bat,” Story said.

Under terms of the joint agreement, Belfast’s four full-time dispatching positions will be transferred to the regional communications center.

While the center’s pay scales were adjusted to accommodate the Belfast dispatchers, responsibility for earned sick and vacation time was not included in the mix. When the commissioners raised that issue with Belfast City Manager Terry St. Peter, the manager said the city would cover the vacation and sick obligations of its former employees.

“It’s in the spirit of moving forward,” St. Peter told the commissioners. “We’ve got a good deal, a good transition and we want to move forward.”

In another matter, Story advised the commissioners that complaints about his deputies speeding in their patrol cars have declined “substantially.” Story said the department has always stressed safe driving, and he commended the deputies for improving their record.