 Welcome to Sheboygan County Government, working for you. My name's Adam Payne, County Administrator and co-host of this program with Chairman Roger Distrudi. And as you know, every month we strive to bring a different program or generally department head as a guest to talk about the very important roles and responsibilities that they oversee. And today we've got a special guest for you. We've got Sheriff Todd Prebe. Welcome, Sheriff. Thank you. It's been, I think, five years now or? Going on the fifth year. Going on the fifth year he's entering or in his second term and it has been just an absolute pleasure to have Sheriff Prebe on board and we're gonna cover some ground today. And Todd, start by just setting the stage force a little bit. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what inspired you to run for Sheriff? Well, I graduated from South High School in 83. Had an interest in law enforcement. I'm not quite sure where in that junior high years I had an interest in law enforcement. Had an uncle that was in law enforcement. And it got to the point where in the late 80s, it was very difficult to get into law enforcement. The lists were long, it was very, very competitive. So I took them up on the offer of going down to Dallas. And that's where I started my law enforcement career was Dallas, Texas. And I was down there for three years and really wanted to get back to my hometown. And that was my ultimate goal. And realizing that the experience would help me get there, it worked, I ended up number one on the list and was hired in Sheboygan, the city of Sheboygan in 92. And 96 is when community policing was starting to make its way within the police department and got onto a team of three that made that up. And just from there, kind of saw where I wanted to make a bigger difference. And I was really, really enthusiastic and really believed in the philosophy of partnerships, that being in community policing and seeing the benefits in that. I really wanted to make a bold difference, I guess you can say. And lead by example, when it comes to truly believing in a philosophy that would help sustain and maintain quality of life and public safety. And it got to that point that, you know what, I'm gonna run for sheriff and I can be that one that kind of like from that top down, you know, in that philosophy, you gotta believe in it to inspire others and really make a difference. And that's really why it is that I ran for sheriff because I wanted to, not that previous sheriffs did not believe in community policing. I wanted to keep that going and I knew I would. Take it to another level. Take it to another level. And you know, I fully expect the next sheriff will take it to the next level, but I'm gonna set them up as best as I can. How many years were you a police officer then at for the city of Sheboygan? What was it, 18 years? 18 and then three in Dallas. So 21 years before running for sheriff. Right. Yeah, and of course now entering your second term, you had no competitor. No, no. At which I think speaks well to what folks feel about the job you're doing and I know you're doing a good job. Tell us a little bit about what's your most proud of your first four years? Some of the changes or improvements you've made? There's actually been several, some on a personal level and some more as an organization or kind of like teamwork. And that's where you kind of come in and play too is the first one, the combined dispatch. I really think that that was a team effort. That I think is going to reap huge benefits as we move forward and what it is combined dispatch will offer the citizens of Sheboygan. And I don't see that as a personal victory. I see that as a team victory. The county and the city working together for the common good and we made it happen. And that is certainly one. There are some things that I take personal pride in and that is in the promotions and the hiring that we have done. I have found that it is important to me to make decisions that's gonna set the next sheriff in a good position because I truly believe that you surround yourself with good people, you let them do their work. And I wanna have, when I retire, I wanna be able to leave and feel really, really good about the difficult decisions in promotions, putting the right people in the right seats on this bus and then also hiring the right people. I refuse to lower my standards, our standards of what it is the public expects out of their law enforcement agency just to fill staffing levels. It's gonna be some challenges coming up but I do take great pride in hiring the right people for the right reasons and promoting the right people. For the right job. Got some good people, good people around you. Putting your inspector and I've had the pleasure of interacting not with all of your deputies but a number of your staff and you've got some good people. So let's set the stage a little bit more for the viewers on the roles and responsibilities of the Sheriff's Department. To most people that may seem, well of course they're out there doing law enforcement and pulling us over when we're speeding but there's a lot that goes on as part of the mission and roles and responsibilities of your department. Oh there is, you nailed it with the patrol division, the most obvious, certainly a responsibility encumbered on the Sheriff's Office when it comes to enforcing ordinances within some of the townships and the villages that don't have their own law enforcement. Of course we still have state law that we enforce the traffic and things of that nature. But one that is, several of them that people don't realize is that encumbered on the Sheriff is actually the role of civil process. Delivering paperwork signed by an official such as a judge, it's encumbered on me and who I delegate to actually serve those papers, lawful papers. We also have the responsibility of providing security for our courtrooms. That's encumbered on the Sheriff. I don't know how many people realize that but that is a constitutional responsibility of the Sheriff. Another one is, you don't think of, and that's the waterways. All bodies of water, river, Lake Michigan, the lakes, that is a responsibility of the Sheriff to monitor those and then also when it comes to drownings and evidence, we gotta try to save in a lot of cases is more retrieve. Another area, huge area responsibility, one that comes with most liability and that is housing of inmates and keeping a accurate registry of them. So that's a biggie that people don't realize that is encumbered on the Sheriff. Right now, approximately how many inmates are we housing and keeping out of the community right now? We're at about the 170 to 180 range. That certainly fluctuates. It will fluctuate throughout the year. You can almost predict where we're going to be. So we're actually doing quite well. And of course you've got folks who are following up on crimes and dealing with the drug abuse in the community and I just know there's a litany of things and that was a nice high end overview. In total, how many staff do you have under your direction and what's your annual budget? We have 172 employees and we're at 17.3 annual budget. So 172 employees, $17 million budget and this is broken into divisions. What are those divisions? There's five divisions. You have the patrol division, the criminal investigation division, support services division, corrections division and also the administration division. Beautiful, nice summary. Turn it over to Roger. Todd, good to have you with us and I know that you're building on the philosophy of community policing and there's a lot of good stuff going on. Why don't you just describe to our viewers what community policing is and how it affects us all? Community policing is a philosophy and a lot of people think as if though it's a program and it's really a philosophy, it's a way of thinking. And the way of thinking of community policing is focusing their attention on building partnerships within the community. It allows us to take more of a proactive approach to law enforcement. Law enforcement typically traditionally reactive, simply responding for calls for service. That doesn't help us to sustain and improve quality of life if you're simply always being reactive. And community policing and building partnerships allows us to forge those relationships where the issues don't solely fall on to the police. And we were really good about that, traditional law enforcement. You've got a problem, you call us, we'll take care of it for you. And what we're saying now is, is let's work together on our community issues. Help us identify what are your concerns in the eyes of the citizen because what we view as issues may not necessarily be a true concern to the public. And we work together to address those concerns. So it's a true partnership to improve, maintain quality of life and the sense of safety. Then what are your expectations of your staff and the people, the citizens out there? How can they help you? And how is the interaction there? Some of it, excuse me, is a public understanding that some of the issues that they have can be resolved by themselves. Let's take for real quick example and that being loud music next door. We've gotten to the point that we've always encouraged people if you've got a problem call us, but now they're calling us for things that at one point in time they were able to resolve on their own. And what we're asking the public to do is to make attempts to resolve the loud music disturbance that is created in the neighborhood. Deal with that on your own first before you call us. And if you can't resolve it, certainly give us a call, but you don't help neighborhood relationships by having the law enforcement intervene to solve that when a neighborly phone call or maybe going on the door and introducing yourself and saying, hey, your music is a little loud. Can you turn it down? I've got to explain the situation. I got a newborn at home and this is a nap time keeping him or her awake does so much better for the neighborhood and it limits our contact. So we're allowed to really deal with the things that are really encumbered on law enforcement. Tough to warm up and feel good about your neighbor if their first thing to do is to call the cops on you rather than just talk to you directly. Exactly. It may only escalate the situation, I'm sure. And I think in a lot of cases that ends up is what happens. They end up not talking to each other, they don't resolve issues and it's the police always going back to the same location. So we can do things such as conflict resolution. We will do interventions, sit down with the people and actually work out what are their grievances and they have actually been very, very successful in really preventing law enforcement from having to go back to the same issue and we just get the neighbors talking. That sounds like a great initiative. Is there any additional funding or staff needed with this initiative? The beauty part about it is there isn't. No, that's great. And you include the public and they give you suggestions and you can improve on a lot of other things so that's great to see. And I know the Sheriff's Department helps local communities. We have Plymouth Falls and I believe there's a couple other ones that have their own police department but how do you help out some other smaller communities or towns and how do we help them out? Well, we have contracts with some of the villages. The most recent one was Howard's Grove. Excuse me. Howard's Grove has gone into a contract with us where there is a certain number of hours that monthly our deputies will devote time into the village of Howard's Grove and we'll use the guidance of the village board to let us know what are the concerns, what is it that you'd like addressed during that contract time and then the officers during that contract time they will concentrate on those efforts. The way we're going about with the philosophy of community policing that we don't stop at contract time and providing the services we provide throughout the whole county. It allows us to have concentrated time in the village of which the village is looking for and it enhances our ability but by no means that outside of contract time we're done going into Howard's Grove. We concentrate on our efforts. Where are the calls for service? Excuse me. And where do we want to put our attention and put forth the resources to deal with whatever issue seems to be going on at night? Are there any particular things in the field of law enforcement where there's bigger problems on the horizon or is there trends and is it happening in our area? Certainly the ongoing drug issue fuels a lot of our part one crimes and we were up a little bit in burglaries. The major crimes have dropped throughout the county with the exception of burglars that went up and that certainly we are led to believe that it is the ongoing prescription drug and heroin use that is fueling the burglaries and we are talking strategies to address the increase. We're always looking for ways to combat the burglars and this is where we may call upon the public. Most residential burglaries you will find nationwide. Most are daytime burglaries. Are we being vigilant as neighbors or watching out for each other? Just because it's daytime doesn't mean that the crime stops in a residential burglaries it actually goes up. There were a few years ago that we were concerned that we may have had to build another detention center and we've been able to hold off on that and you've been doing a great deal with having alternatives to help the situation. Maybe you could explain to everyone how that works and has it been effective? We have the alternatives to incarceration unit of which they will use the bracelet for qualified inmates that are released, excuse me, to look for jobs or maintain employment, things of that nature. We also now have introduced day reporting for certain qualified inmates again. They will be required to come in with a bracelet but check in periodically to maintain their sobriety and that they're following the rules that has been set on them and it allows us to keep our population low. So with those efforts and now with the increase of the volunteer work that is out there, there's more work release being done or requests to leave for work, we are keeping a good handle on our population of which in the future we're not seeing having to have an expansion because of these alternatives that are right now doing very well and maintaining a jail population that is manageable. You mentioned qualified individuals. Who picks those people? Is it the judges, the DEA and yourself or how it's said? It judges will impose on some and some of it is also through classification of inmates and depending on their offenses, what their history, if they have a history of walking out of jail or not returning from work release, they will not be eligible. So we have criteria that the AI unit will follow to see whether or not somebody will be released for work release or eligible for the bracelet or day reporting. So it's really a combination of working relationships sometimes between the judges and the AI unit. Thank you and thank you for helping keep the citizens of Sheboygan College safe. Appreciate it, Todd. Thank you. Sheriff, earlier you talked a little bit about combined dispatch and it was 2013 when Chairman Distruty and the County Board authorized that expenditure. I mean, as we all know, law enforcement is not inexpensive. Sheriff's Department is one of our largest departments at over $17 million annual budget and then of course you need the tools, the resources to be effective. And as we've discussed for years, combined dispatch was something that we thought would really improve or enhance our service and make it more consistent. And now this year, as you know, folks perhaps can't tell driving by the Sheriff's Department but on the inner walls, the remodeling has begun, the work is in progress. So please refresh folks' memory. Why is combined dispatch a good idea? Why did the County Board support this? What do you see as the improvements or enhancements that are going to occur? The number one will be situational awareness. If folks would remember a Bratwurst Day Parade where the County officers had a car chase, they discontinued the chase but the car kept on going and went east on Colon Memorial Drive right to the Bratwurst Day Parade. And it was the quick response of city officers that prevented from some serious, serious if not possible death related outcomes of this vehicle that entered the parade route. In a situational awareness environment such as a combined dispatch, the city officers would have been informed that we still have a vehicle traveling at a high rate of speed that was heading to Erie Avenue, the parade route. It's things like that. We had another incident just not too long ago where a combined center, both the city and the County officers both would have understood what was going on at the time and would have been well-informed because some of the situations that law enforcement's involved in, ebb and flows from community village into the city back at home in the county, and this just really keeps everybody in tune to what's really, truly going on at real time. Another thing too is I have seen and experienced where comm centers are in need of supervisors, full-time supervisors. Patrol supervisors in the past have been dubbed with that responsibility of not only leading their officers or their deputies, but also supposed to somehow lead the comm center telecommunicators or the dispatchers, and it becomes very difficult. Having their own supervisors will make for much better cohesiveness and consistency amongst the shifts on how they do things. It will provide equity when dealing with in-house issues. It just makes so much sense to have devoted supervisors within that comm center, and it will also provide that. I can recall when we were talking to common council members and county board supervisors in the public, and for me personally, one of the most compelling reasons for it was you had the city's combined dispatch center, or city's dispatch center. You had the county's dispatch center. It seemed as though there had to be some efficiencies that could be gained if we were under one house rather than two over time with software purchases, what have you. We knew we'd gain some efficiencies, but the most compelling argument for me, and I think for many board members, is whether you're in the city of Sheboygan, whether you're in the town of Sherman, or out in the marsh, or wherever it might be, if you get in a car accident, or you have a situation where your loved one has a heart attack, or your child is choking, or whatever it might be, and you call 911, you expect the quickest response possible, and it shouldn't take longer to dispatch that because you're calling in an unincorporated area versus in the city. When people call 911, they're not looking for calls to be transferred from one dispatch center to the other dispatch center, ultimately to the ambulance or the deputy. They're looking for the quickest response possible, and as you know, as well as most people, seconds mean everything. A minute delay could be the minute between, the difference between someone out of dying of that heart attack, or getting the help they need, so I just recall feeling, passionate that if we can improve our response and save more lives, as well as provide a more consistent approach, no matter where you are in the county, you know when you call 911, you're gonna get the best, most immediate response you can get, that's a dollar worth investing, and I really commend the county board and the sheriff's department and the police department and all the good work that's gone on over the years to get to the point now where we have finally broken ground, the remodeling's begun, and I think we're looking at probably what fall of 2016 for actually turning the key on this and going from two centers to one. Is that about right, Jerry? Yeah, that's about right. There may be some adjustments. We don't know what the future will lie when it comes to the actual install of everything, but that's about the way it looks now. It's kind of, it's flexing a little bit, but we knew that potential was there. Right, Christy DeBlay, Sergeant DeBlay, right? You promoted her to be the captain to kind of help coordinate with the city and provide training and get protocols established and a lot of good work has ensued the last year. Please share a little bit about what's been going on behind the scenes to help prepare for the combined dispatch. Well, one of the things that we did was we brought on a project manager and that was the retired inspector, Bill Brockbauer. So he's been a great asset to making sure that things are being done in a timely manner. Sergeant DeBlay has done a fantastic job in cross-training the employees from both the city dispatch and ours so that they can flip-flop from each house, setting up the protocols, working with the department in conjunction with the sheriff's office and working on the protocols and fine-tuning various things as such as Mabus and teaching the city dispatchers how is Mabus dispatched. So when we go live, it should be seamless that everybody is prepared and ready for when the lights go on and they're occupying those seats in that new center. She has done a fantastic job of researching those that have had combined dispatch, what did they do right, what did they do wrong and learning from those experiences so that we're not making the same mistakes. I can't say enough that we've done the right thing by having a project manager that doesn't put more of a workload on our current staff. We learned that from the Spillman project. It's nice to have him to coordinate that stuff and a fantastic leader in Sergeant DeBlay that is understanding what do we need to do so that we are ready to go live. And of course, you've got a very competent inspector as well that took over for former inspector Bill Brookbauer. Inspector Jim Rousseau has been a fantastic, what should I say, right hand man. Bill was fantastic. Jim is following the same path as Bill did and it gives me a lot of confidence as a sheriff that I'm surrounded by really, really good people and I feel blessed. I truly do feel blessed. And just to wrap, put a bowl around all this to refresh folks' memories. I mean, this is a major undertaking. It's been discussed for years. The implementation timetable is a good three, four year period. We're looking at over a $3 million improvement and remodeling and everything to create the new dispatch center in the Sheriff's Department. And then you're looking at another $10, $12 million for the entire new radio system, backbone, upgrading all the radios across the county. I mean, these are some major investments in law enforcement in our community to make sure people are safe. Yeah, well, my compliments to you. I know we only have about a minute remaining here, but I'd like to say how proud I am to work with Sheriff Todd Preby. And I know Roger said it earlier. He has really provided some excellent leadership. We've been fortunate in Sheboygan County to have some good sheriffs and a real strong sheriff's department. And Todd, as he said, has continued to try to make improvements and position the organization for the next sheriff to also be successful. And just to shout out to everyone in our Sheriff's Department and in the Sheboygan Police Department and all of our law enforcement across the county, we are so fortunate to have hardworking men and women in these roles and doing a wonderful job. So thank you. Thank you for joining us today. If you want to ask anymore about our roles and responsibilities in the Sheriff's Department, don't hesitate to contact Todd Preby or the inspector, Jim Rousseau. And certainly your county board supervisors if you have suggestions or ideas for improvement. Until next month, thanks for joining us.