AUGUSTA – Washington County leaders, still reeling after voters rejected a bid to build a racino in Calais, expressed frustration this week about the stalled status of their plans for a joint state and county prison Down East.

Sen. Kevin Raye, R-Perry, said Thursday that he’s disappointed the governor’s jail consolidation proposal has sidetracked efforts for a new facility in Washington County.

“It would be a shame if the failure to follow through on this means we are not in a position to offer it up as an alternative if the consolidation proposal fails to win approval in the upcoming [legislative] session,” Raye said in a statement sent Thursday to officials at the Maine Department of Corrections and Gov. John Baldacci’s office.

State and county leaders have been meeting for several months to discuss ways to build a combined facility to replace the aging county jail in Machias and the state-run Downeast Correctional Facility in Bucks Harbor. The talks preceded the governor’s announcement in late August that he planned to unify all of Maine’s county jails and state prisons.

David Farmer, the governor’s spokesman, said Baldacci understands the frustration but stressed that the state has not turned its back on Washington County.

“The biggest problem here is that the plans aren’t moving as fast as some would like,” Farmer said Thursday. “But the governor has said to me personally, ‘I would not have sat down with them if I didn’t want to move forward.'”

Raye, who also was one of the most vocal supporters of the Passamaquoddy racino, said a new prison facility in Washington County would secure well-paying jobs for a severely depressed region.

But he claimed the Baldacci administration shifted gears after the jail consolidation proposal was announced, putting talks in Washington County on hold.

Raye even pushed for the DOC to meet an October deadline for presenting the plan to the Legislature’s Criminal Justice Committee, but that deadline was never met.

“It is enormously disappointing that his administration has now abandoned the effort to include the WC proposal as part of the solution for Maine’s prison overcrowding crisis,” Raye said, referring to the fact that no face-to-face talks have taken place since September.

Washington County Commissioner Chris Gardner, who has been involved in discussions from the beginning, said the state has been contradictory in its dealings with his county.

“The governor assured us that just because the [consolidation] alternative was out there, that didn’t mean talks would stall in Washington County,” Gardner said. “We were told the two plans were on separate paths, and we trusted the state, perhaps more blindly than we should have.”

Farmer, however, said he felt Washington County might be feeling slighted this week in light of Tuesday’s vote, which halted plans for a Passamaquoddy racetrack and casino in Calais.

“A lot of people blame the governor personally for the vote. I think that’s unfair,” Farmer said. “The governor and Senator Raye were on opposite sides on the racino issue – that hasn’t been a secret – but our efforts to work with Washington County on economic development haven’t changed because of that vote.”

Farmer said he sympathized with Washington County residents.

“There is a lot of frustration there. We understand it completely,” he said. “The county is hurting. They wanted something yesterday.”

Gardner said both the racino’s failure and the jail consolidation proposal affirm feelings that Washington County is disconnected from the rest of the state.

“It would be foolhardy of us to say that we don’t consider one when thinking of the other,” Gardner said, referring to the racino and jail proposal. “But it’s not just Washington County that’s hurting. Rural Maine in general has been undergoing great changes at the state’s expense. If you look at what’s going on in rural Maine, and we’re certainly indicative, it’s hard not to feel a little disenfranchised.”

Farmer urged Washington County leaders to be patient. He said leaders at the Department of Corrections have been meeting for the last few days to put forth a more detailed proposal of the consolidation plan.

“The outcome of a [Washington County] facility depends on the jail consolidation plan,” he said. “We still need to work out those details. But the governor is serious about this. He hasn’t forgotten.”

For his part, Gardner said county leaders will make every effort to make sure those in Augusta have Washington County on their radar.

“I will say that the county community, in the face of what happened with the racino, feels like this is a time when we really need to start making some noise,” he said.