 Welcome to Sheboygan County government working for you. My name is Adam Payne, County Administrator and co-host of this program with Chairman Roger Tostruti. And today we're very pleased to have one of our, well frankly one of our top elected officials and a very important department head in Sheboygan County. Sheriff Todd Prebe, welcome Todd. Thank you. It hasn't been that long since Todd's joined our ranks as sheriff. It'll be two years here in January though. He was just telling me off the air 23 years in law enforcement. So a pretty impressive track record. And of course, Sheriff a lot of folks are well aware of your track record here in Sheboygan, Sheboygan County. Please begin by just sharing a little bit about your background and your law enforcement career. Well, shortly after high school I decided to get into the criminal justice as major when I went to UW Milwaukee and tried the army and they refused me because at the time I was on a medication and they wouldn't take me. So I went on the route of going to school and continued through, you know, pretty honed in on law enforcement is what I really wanted to do and got a little antsy and had some frustration in getting into law enforcement. And then when I got back in the late 80s was very difficult. So I decided to take some advice from my uncle who's an investigator for Dallas police department in Texas and went down there and they got me through the application process fairly quick and spent three years down there shortly after that. And then while I was down there, I had every intention of actually coming back to my hometown and this is where I really wanted to end up having a full career and raising my family. So it worked out quite well that way. So three years in Dallas. Three years in Dallas and then Sheboygan police department was 18 years and just finishing up two years here. And the majority of my career was with community policing and Sheboygan, which I think really gave me the notoriety with name recognition and things of that nature that really gave me I think an optimal opportunity to run for sheriff and be able to do some of the things that I wanted to be a part of. And well, my career kind of dictated to me that probably to really fulfill what I like to see and accomplish in law enforcement, my best route would be running for sheriff. Now with city PD in Dallas, city police department. City police department. So city experience is a huge community like Dallas that obviously the city police department, Sheboygan, now Sheboygan County out of curiosity, particularly between Dallas and the environment here, what were some of the key takeaways or differences? Wow. They're probably the sense of quality of life. Let me put it that way in a personal level. I would not want to raise a family in Dallas. It's tough to be a kid down there. When I worked Oak Lawn, you didn't see kids playing outside. You certainly didn't see them on the sidewalk. They were all within the courtyard of the apartment complex. Here, well, there's kids riding big wheels up but down the sidewalks and the kids are riding in their bikes to the park. Well, you just didn't see that down there. Types of crime, certainly more violent. So definitely it's a quality of life that I see as a huge difference. Now I went down there with family. Spring break two years ago, things have really changed because of partnerships and community policing. The area that I used to work is so different that it actually makes me feel real good that they were able to turn around an area that led the community actually in crime in some areas, especially burglaries and assaults and things of that nature, and be a prospering, vibrant community within Dallas. It was really neat to actually see that. So I know community policing works when you work in partnership. Excellent, excellent. And clearly now, good part of your career in Sheboygan, now as Sheriff in Sheboygan County, what do you see as some of the key challenges we face as a community in law enforcement or key challenges you have as an individual working in the Sheboygan Sheriff's Department? I'd have to say that the thing that probably comes to mind right off the get go when we bring up this subject matter has been just echoed at a conference that I just came from with Badger State Sheriff's and that is the growing problem with heroin. Saw this as a community policing officer talking to various groups in the community, getting phone calls, hey, we've got a family member that's got this problem. And we knew long ago already that the growing problem with prescription medication was going to end up leading us into a problem with heroin. And that's what we're starting to see actually across the state. Just met with 60 sheriffs out of 72 were present and we're all in agreement that we're seeing an escalation in heroin use basically because it's more readable and cheaper. So that really alarms me. How do you, you know, if Roger are walking down the street and someone's using heroin or one of your deputies are going on patrol or community policing and see someone on heroin, what types of traits or characteristics do you look for? I, you know, I guess you're looking for those that are probably, there's, I guess it's going to look a little different depending on the individual at what stage during their high they're at, you know. Certainly we're not seeing people overdosing out on park benches or anything like that or passing out on the street. I think what we're seeing is they're doing this more in-house behind closed doors. I am aware that users, especially new users, first time users have been using this with another person and they have Narcan available. So in case they overdose, they're able to bring them back with the use of Narcan. So we're not seeing this out in the public. It's not like Amsterdam where these people are, you know, using and shooting up and basically going unconscious practically out there in a park. We're not at that. But what our guys are being attentive to is things that are in plain view during domestic disputes, traffic stops, what is in plain view that our officers can see and identify that associates those items with drug use then that gives us the probable cause to either get a search warrant or make an arrest depending on the situation. So it's more of an opportunity and being aware of what to look for and then taking action. I know in the past, whether it's been discussions with you or the former sheriff, there's also been talk about escalating violence in the community, whether it's the formation of gangs or more infiltration from folks from other areas looking to come to Sheboygan County, any trends we're seeing there. Nothing that is any different than what we've been seeing over the course of the last few years where certainly the serious crime seemed to be gang on gang with the cities shooting that they had that led to the death of the one man. I don't think that things are any worse than they were. We have still the presence of gangs. There'll be retaliation between the gangs for until we get our hands wrapped around this gang issue and put together some community strategies to start to disassemble some of these gangs, it's gonna be difficult and it's a community problem. It's just not a law enforcement problem and that's the part I think the community needs to understand that if we're gonna combat this we have to do it together as a community. I've been so proud of the Sheriff's Department and law enforcement in general in this community because as you know, everyone is being asked to do more with less at all levels of government. Folks are really tightening their belt and looking to hold the line and I know that the Sheriff's Department has had the same number of deputies for a long time. Obviously, you're one of the 20 departments that help establish the budget that Chairman Distrudi and the Board ultimately adopts. We've been really trying to hold the line on raising property taxes. In fact, as you know, we've reduced them. With that said, when you continue to have law enforcement needs or emergency response needs, obviously we need to pay the bills, set the stage force a little bit. How many staff do you have in the Sheriff's Department and what's your annual budget? We're at probably 172 employees and we're at $16.8 million for our budget. And as far as I can recall, and I've been here 14 years, I know you're going on your second, but I don't believe we've added any deputies in 10 years. I know we've had some reorganization here and there, but I don't believe we've added deputies as... I would have to say you're probably correct on that. Yet when I read your annual report year after year, you know, though I think we're providing effective law enforcement without question, the demands aren't going down, the demands are going up, and another example was the excellent work you and others did just recently with the tragedy we had at the Sheboygan Harbor. Everyone pulled together and helped meet the needs there. As you look at your last two years as Sheriff, we're coming on two years, what are some of the changes that you've sought to make and what are some changes you're looking to make in the future? Well, I'm sticking pretty much with my platform with the emphasis on community policing and developing leaders in that in the form of leadership in police organizations training. And actually the challenge in a department wide philosophy of community policing actually hasn't really been much of a challenge because they haven't really deviated much from that. There's different levels of community policing ever since Elani Koenig days when she was Sheriff and continued on, we're taking it to the next level. There are some things that we're having to do to create that time in order for us to build those partnerships and to start problem solving. That's where the time is gonna come into play that will be a challenge and people are going to be asked to prioritize what's important to them. There's gonna be a survey going out. We wanna know what's important to them because we have to start freeing up some of the deputies time so that we can identify community issues and then build partnerships and solving those. So that will be one of the challenges that we will continue to work on and really move forward with. Leadership and police organizations after the spring of 2013, all of our staff will have gone through the three week course of leadership and police organizations. We're starting to speak and walk the walk of leadership and police organization, fundamentals that are taught. It's been very rewarding to hear how some of the supervisors are recognizing problems or issues within their work group and then understanding the root cause and then putting together a leader strategy to solve that. And it is actually, I think, been reflective of those out in the road, seeing that you know what we're changing and things are being handled much differently now with greater understanding of what's really causing this problem. So it's going to take a while though, all this stuff doesn't happen overnight and that is part of my challenge personally is the frustration that this change doesn't happen fast enough and I gotta come to grips with that and I keep reminding myself two terms, Todd, two terms because then we'll be where I really wanna see it. Final question before I turn it over to Roger and I know he wants to ask you a few more questions about community policing as well. Set the stage for our viewers a little bit. What are the divisions that are predominantly associated with the Sheriff's Department, their main focuses of concern? Certainly corrections is the biggest work group within our department and probably doesn't get as much of tension because they are working in the detention center and nobody really sees them out in the community. Their job is to keep the inmates safe and secure. That is their job, that is their role and the responsibility of the Sheriff's Office. Then we have dispatch, another work group that is unseen, unsung heroes to handle those stressful calls that come in and then being able to respond and clearly think to get first responders out there or police personnel or whatever the case may be and in the case of last weekend, the dive team. So with that being said, those are two work groups along with support services, another unsung group of individuals that do not get the praise for everything it is they do behind the scenes. Then certainly we have the patrol deputies that do a fantastic job of, you know, attending to the calls for service out there in the community and taking a proactive approach and preventing crime. Then we also have civil process. This is one where as not as visible as patrol but still has a presence, they're delivering the legal paperwork from our judiciary, not the most pleasant type of work because usually they're doing an eviction or foreclosure. And then we have our detectives, certainly in an important role within a law enforcement agency. And then we also have our bailiffs providing the security in the jail, which is also or security in the courts, which is also the responsibility of the Sheriff's Office. Excellent, excellent, Roger. Todd, I know that you're building on the philosophy of community policing within the Sheriff's Department and building relationships and partnerships. Would you describe to the viewers what community policing is and what it looks like in their communities? Community policing in a nutshell is getting law enforcement back involved in the community and the community back involved in law enforcement. That's it in a nutshell. And the way we do that is by building relationships that is reaching out and working together to identify community issues, community problems, just not the problems what we as law enforcement think the community has. It's reaching out to the community and asking, what are your concerns in your community and your neighborhood? And then working together in solving them. So the most recent we had received a phone call from an area church that is very concerned about the recent shootings. So now here's where community policing kicks in. We made a point of being sure that we have a presence with some upcoming events, but also we took it the next step. We asked for the township deputy to make contact with the leaders from that church and start building a rapport with them and start to build some knowledge on when do they meet, who to contact if they have some concerns of somebody that is just not acting right within the congregation. Things of that nature, we wanna build that level of trust. So kind of as an early detection system that if somebody has got a concern about somebody in the church, they have somebody they can go to in confidence and share that concern. That's the kind of rapport we wanna have with our citizens throughout the county. And that's gonna be a long process, of course, but. Along those same lines, what expectations do you have of your staff and the citizens in those each individual community? From the staff, I expect that they identify root causes and solve problems and get away from the reactive traditional law enforcement. We wanna start becoming proactive, looking for roots to problems and solving them. When it comes to the community component and what I expect out of them is for them to start solving some of their own problems. I think the community over the course of the last few decades have become very reliant on law enforcement to solve their problems. Well, we don't have to be solving the problems. They can call the neighbor or walk over and talk to the neighbor and ask them to politely turn down their music. Or they can also be the eyes and ears for the community and the neighborhood watch kind of concept, not spying on your neighbor, but not being afraid to report criminal suspicious behavior to come forward with information that may assist investigators in a crime. That is a civic duty incumbent on the citizens of Sheboyin County. And I expect them to follow through with it if we're gonna maintain the level of safety and the quality of life that we're accustomed to. Is there any additional expense or funds that are coming in to help offset those expenses? There is no expenses. It's really a different way of doing business that's a philosophy. So what the one thing is for politicians or our county board supervisors to understand we're not gonna necessarily have numbers to always justify our manpower. We're gonna start really evaluating performance based on time. Stats is an easy number to look at to justify numbers, but are we really solving problems as a law enforcement agency? So we're going to be doing things differently to really justify our manpower based on the time that they spend solving problems and taking proactive approaches to things because not everything is gonna have a number and that's the difficult part and that's where it's important for community leaders to understand we're not always gonna have numbers for ya. We're gonna be basing our efforts on outcomes versus outputs. So it's a little different approach. I know we have several towns and villages that have contracted services at their request and provide the services from the Sheriff's Department. How does this impact them? Well, I'm gonna let them gauge that as time goes on, but what I foresee coming up is where township deputies are going to get to the point that they're going to become very good at identifying problems and causes that it will start to cause, I think some to scratch their head, why do we still need some of these hours? Because it was my understanding these contracts were created because of problems and the, what should I say? I guess the thought process of adding more manpower into the community more hours would kind of put a cap on the problem. Well, the approach of community policing and problem solving is that we're going to identify the real cause of that problem and we're gonna solve it. We're not gonna add more hours into that problem. We're going to identify it and either eliminate it, reduce the harm, refer it to another agency or reduce its frequency. So we've got a goal in mind there that's not going to necessarily involve a constant group of individuals to monitor the situation because that to me is not beneficial. I know we've talked about some possible challenges and you spoke about some of the issues that are coming up but with these increased challenges, what's the impact on our detention center and are there different alternatives to the detention center and how close are we to full right now? Well, we have 227 today that are currently in the jail. So we're still sitting pretty good. This is the time of the year that normally spikes, July, August, population spikes. We're still in good with being able to handle our population and with some of the challenges that we see in the community as time goes on. Some of these folks are going to need more services outside of jail and I guess that's one of the concerns I have is for some of these folks that are in jail for chemical dependencies, what are they receiving outside of jail in the form of services that gets them on the right track so they're not going back to jail? We can handle the, right now we're able to handle the populations that we're experiencing and then we also have another program, the work ender program that we'll be working on and hopefully implementing by the end of the year that puts us in a pretty good position of being able to handle the influx of inmates but where I kind of put the challenge on the community is, is what are we doing for these folks once they're out of jail and they're back into the environment where they're surrounded by these triggers that bring them right back into the very behaviors that got them into jail. That is something that I think collectively as a community we need to really start addressing. Well, well done. We only have a few minutes left but one of the areas I wanted to ask you to comment on a little bit is often chairman to Strudy and I and I know you and others in the county and the city we hear from constituents. What does the city and county do to share resources? They should be sharing resources and the three of us know that between the county and the city a lot is shared. There is a lot of cooperation. What are some examples of where the sheriff's department and the city of Sheboygan police department are working together? There's several and there's several scenarios that I can give you. The most recent was the last weekend with the dive team having to be called out for those two gentlemen that were swept into Lake Michigan. There's a perfect example of a working relationship between law enforcement that kind of is automatic. There's that mutual aid agreement that you know what we're gonna help each other out. We'll worry where county picks up out there on the pier and whether or not it's your jurisdiction or it's ours. We'll worry about that later. Let's right now let's focus in on what we need to do and let's rescue these folks. So that is always there and the dive team is an example where the city and the county are together on that dive team. Now they've expanded that to actually including support from the volunteer fire departments. Sheboygan Falls, this one, Kohler, Cedar Grove, they were involved in that dive call out as support for the dive team and what a great working relationship. We've got the multi-jurisdictional law or the multi-enforcement group which is drug unit. There is made up of officers from the city, from the county and then also Plymouth. There's an example of a working relationship. Our canine units will work and train together on occasion and work together on MEG unit investigations so they come together. There are times in big situations such as the our way shooting and suicide several years back where both SWAT teams were needed to actually clear that large building so it was advantageous for us to have two working independent SWAT teams for the purpose of that situation right there so they came together in a time of need there. The investigative most recently, the big investigations with our burglar that's currently going through the courts now, those two divisions from the city and the sheriff's office, those investigators did a fantastic job of really putting together a really good burglary case, multiple counts and working together in fine fashion to make that happen. So where we go from here down the road, it's a good question and the working relationship that we have with the city I think is a really good working relationship. Certainly combined dispatch is probably on the forefront of anything else but certainly we're Chief Domigalski myself, we bounce ideas off each other so anything is possible down the road. And most recently major investment with 1.2, 1.4 million and Spilliman, a new computer system that both the sheriff's department, the city police department and other law enforcement agencies are relying upon. Yes and that is gonna be a great asset for us to be able to draw data from. It is gonna be beneficial for us and down the road having everybody on the same, records management system that we're able to get that information in a timely manner and at one point of reference so that's good for us. Outstanding, outstanding overview and if you have more questions or you heard something you'd like to learn a little more about don't hesitate to contact Sheriff Todd Preby or his excellent staff because there's certainly a lot going on and it's nice to end on such a positive note about all the good work going on between the city PD and the sheriff's department and of course Sheriff Preby has helped bring that together even more strongly because of his role having worked now in both organizations and we didn't have really time to get into but we're definitely working on combined dispatch. The three of us have been meeting with city representation on that, discussing that further and our hope is that we may be able to come up with a win-win proposal. So Todd, thank you so much for joining us today and on behalf of the Sheboygan County Board thank you for joining us. Next month, our finance director Terry Hansen will be here to talk about the budget process and some good news there as well. So until then, thanks for joining us.