DOVER-FOXCROFT – Piscataquis County commissioners declined an invitation Tuesday to join the Penobscot County Jail Expansion Advisory Committee and discuss the crowding in the Penobscot County Jail.

The Bangor facility has experienced crowding for years and was granted a variance from the state to increase its bed capacity, according to a letter the commissioners received.

Wary of such invitations, Sheriff John Goggin told the commissioners Tuesday that the Piscataquis County Jail was functioning quite well so the county did not need to become involved with Penobscot’s problem. He considered the advisory committee’s formation the first step toward the regionalization of jails.

“We don’t seem to have a jail issue” in Piscataquis County, Goggin said.

He said he believes the state looks at the Piscataquis County facility with a “jaundiced” eye.

Explaining his comment further after the meeting, Goggin said, the state “just has a way of overlooking us when it’s convenient for them.” On the flip side, when it’s to the state’s advantage to cut back, the smaller jails become the targets to implement the cuts, he said.

In other business Tuesday, the commissioners endorsed an effort by the Piscataquis County Soil and Water Conservation District to secure grant money for signs for its popular demonstration forest in Williamsburg Township.

The model forestry program, recognized nationally for conservation and forestry resources, serves as an outdoor classroom and has several miles of interpretive trails through the property.

“We’re really trying to develop it as an asset,” Joanna Zink Tarrazi, the district’s executive director, told Piscataquis County commissioners Tuesday. Since the forest fits well in the nature-based tourism that the county is touting, Tarrazi said, directional as well as interpretative signs are needed. In addition, the district needs to publish some new brochures.

The commissioners also noted Tuesday that the county spent about $9,000 in attorney fees for negotiations with the local union representing dispatchers, corrections and patrol officers to reach a three-year contract.

Supervisors are not included in the union contract.