BANGOR, Maine — After previously refusing to step down as the Penobscot County Treasurer, John Hiatt failed to show up for the county commissioners' meeting for the second straight week on Tuesday.
County administrator Erika Honey said during the meeting that Hiatt left her a voicemail on Monday saying that he would be attending the meeting and there was no indication that anything had changed.
Hiatt was charged with possession of child pornography earlier this month as officials continue to investigate Hiatt's harassment charges from last year.
Three weeks ago, Hiatt agreed to resign from his Bangor school board position but announced he would not step down from his position as Penobscot County Treasurer.
Penobscot County Commissioner Andre Cushing said Penobscot County, like other counties, now has a full-time finance director who operates the day-to-day budget activity. Cushing said county business is still running fine because Hiatt did delegate his duties to the finance director as deputy treasurer but it still has made things difficult.
"As commissioners, we do not have a mechanism under our rules to remove an elected official so we are at an impasse till Mr. Hiatt determines whether he will indeed step down as county treasurer," Cushing said. "He has declined to step down from the county commissioner's position where he had stepped down from the school board."
Cushing said there are a lot of important things that the county needs to be dealing with and be focused on to move forward and it would be helpful if Mr. Hiatt saw the need for himself to step down.