 Welcome to Sheboygan County Government, working for you. My name's Adam Payne, County Administrator and co-host of this program with Chairman Mike Van der Steen. And today we're very pleased to have a new face, a new department head that you may have seen in the community but not on this television program yet. Sheriff Todd Preby, welcome Todd. Sheriff Preby has been with us now for about nine months although was very active in the community with the city of Sheboygan, making good things happen. And Sheriff, why don't you start by just sharing with our viewers a little bit about yourself and your background in law enforcement? Well, I started law enforcement in Dallas, Texas. Frustration with getting hired locally kind of prompt me to go down and start with the Dallas Police Department. My uncle was an investigator down there and he helped along with the process and decided to spend three years there to gain that experience that would give me the edge to get back where I really wanted to be and that was back home in my hometown. That was my focus, my intention, and some opportunities came up all about a year and a half into my tenure in Dallas and I decided too soon, too soon I need a little bit more time. I mean, you're considered a rookie until you got five years on the department. So I was fairly green yet. So spent another year and a half opportunity, presented itself again, and then three years, just about three years. And then I was hired on with the Sheboygan Police Department, was assigned to patrol, and then after about, it was in 96 actually, the department was awarded a community policing grant and three of us were chosen to start up that unit and had been in there until the election time and winning the election. So it was, so far it's been a great ride so far and now I'm where I really wanna be and enjoying every day of it and the challenges that come. So I'm feeling when I come to retirement that I will have a fulfilled career and opportunities to do things that I really wanted to see happen in our community. Well, you've made a lot of good things happen already and I guess my first question for you in regards to the Sheriff's Department is, what was your initial impression? Was it what you thought it would be? What was your overall impression of the department? Oh, the impression of the department I guess, just reconfirm that there's an awful lot of good people there, doing an awful lot of good things and actually seeing in action really made me feel really good that I'm not inheriting a department that has a lot of issues. The department corrections a model for the state and it's just really great to see that I'm able to focus in on the changes that I was an advocate of when it comes to leadership development and expanding the philosophy of community policing and being in the position to do that versus addressing some of the big concerns that some of the other departments have as cultural changes that need to be changed as a new leader comes in and we don't have that. The leadership that is there, I'm surrounded by very knowledgeable, experienced and just people with good character and that makes my job a heck of a lot easier. So I'm able to focus on those changes that I have talked about. And talk about that a little bit more, what did you see as some of the greatest challenges coming into it and in your short tenure, what accomplishments do you feel you've already contributed to or made in the department? Nothing has surprised me so far. I pretty much knew what it is. I'm coming into some of the challenges. So that hasn't been a surprise at all. The real challenges personally has been not enough time in a day and not seeing changes happen fast enough. And I keep reminding myself, it's gonna take time to get there and trying to convince others that this change is gonna be slow. The philosophy of community policing and taking that to the next level, it's gonna take a while. It's gonna take a while to get the buy-in from the public and get their input and their participation in with it. Certainly dodging the bullet with the budget for the 2012 budget is a big relief, one less thing to have to worry about. And I'm very happy about that. So quite frankly, some of the biggest challenges, like I said, is actually the lack of, not enough time in a day, it's still balancing out the family life and then certainly attending to a much more responsibility than I've had before and not seeing those changes quite fast enough for me. But that's okay, I'm dealing with it. As we speak, as we tape this interview, it's Sheboygan County government works week and as you know, your department's gonna be having an open house today both at the Sheriff's Department at the detention center, of course, that'll have occurred by the time folks view this. But if people aren't familiar with the Sheriff's Department or have never had the opportunity to tour it, how would you describe the role and responsibilities of your department? It's actually a little bit more than a police department. Police departments pretty much are focused on for providing protection and service to the community. We certainly do that along with focusing in on a partnership and relationship with our community to identify and address community concerns. We have another component that's unlike other police departments and that is the role of the jail. There our mission is to protect and secure the inmates that are there. And we've also got the emergency management director which is also another component that is actually a service throughout the whole county and his role is to coordinate the emergency responses of fire departments and ambulances in a coordinated effort so that things run smoothly working very closely with dispatch center and things of that nature. We certainly have the dispatch center. Not all police departments have a dispatch center. So we have that responsibility of receiving calls for service and then routing the appropriate response to where the need is. We also have support services. Those are the busy beavers that are behind the scenes that nobody ever sees but is an integral in our team. We're all dependent on each other and without support services our cases, our reports don't get to the DA's office just for an example. Then we also have civil process. These are individuals that serve the orders that are given down by the judge and there is a process and a procedure that is very precise. We also have the responsibility of providing security in our courtrooms. So we have bailiffs that are posted in those courtrooms to provide the security and to address whatever needs that may come up at that time. So that is something that's incumbent on us unlike police departments. The other thing certainly is our patrol much like the police department's very similar and another component that's very similar is the administrative level, the command staff supervising. I like to talk more about versus supervising, managing to actually leading our people and that is a direction that we're going. I think we'll address it with a question coming up and I'll talk more about that. The big picture then total budget and total number of staff. We're at about 179 staff with a $16.5 million budget. And then final question before I turn it over to the chairman Van der Steen. When you came in you obviously assessed your staffing and right away you made a key administrative move promoting inspector, director Brechtbauer to inspector Brechtbauer. Just touch on that briefly. I know inspector Berg was with the sheriff's department for a number of years, did good work, good man. Obviously he retired but just talk about director Brechtbauer for a while because I personally have a lot of respect for his leadership and I know you two have a good team work in place. Yes, we share the same vision. Without that type of experience and knowledge, character and the competence, I'd be in a much different state of mind today. He gives me that level of confidence that no matter what is tossed our way we're gonna be able to deal with it as an agency and he gives that level of comfort. No different than what inspector Berg, I don't know how now we're looking at who's gonna replace Bill Brechtbauer. And so we gotta start thinking about the future and mulling who's going to really meet the needs of the department because we don't have that director position anymore as that stepping stone into the inspector because it has become a very integral part of our agency now and with that he brings a high level of confidence that I have in him and obviously with other departments that we work with, he's got a great work in relationship not only with the public but also with other departments that he works very closely with but he also has a high respect from the entire department really. He has got that leadership skill, he's got the character and I said the competence that is very important nowadays especially with the structure of the department and not having that director's position. So it's gonna be tough shoes to fill there but we won't be waiting until the last minute to start developing our next inspector because it's gonna take a while. His knowledge is just unbelievable. And if you've been following Coney government, 20 departments, the budget constraints we've had so the sheriff's department just about every year has received an increase because of the important critical need of law enforcement in this community but they too like every other department have been streamlining making adjustments and an operational review a year or so ago recommended some opportunities. So the top staff, the inspector director one position was eliminated so as the sheriff mentioned that creates some learning or training challenges in the future and then also there have been some support staff that have been streamlined. So I'll transition to Chairman Mike Van der Steen but I'm just real pleased that the two key individuals I work with, with the sheriff obviously and inspector or no, yes, inspector Brooke Bowery, they just provide such key leadership and the passion comes through and I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you Adam. Sheriff, I know you're promoting and building on the concept of community policing, stressing more partnerships in the community. Could you tell the viewers a little bit about what this is gonna look like in the future? Oh, absolutely. We have broken our county of 16 townships into nine. It's based on population and we have assigned an officer on every shift to a township and we've developed teams within that township and the whole idea is to capitalize on the strengths that each officer has and to begin building relationships and partnerships with the members of the township along with the business folks and start to identify community concerns and then together with the business partnerships and the citizen partnerships, start to solve those problems through a problem solving process which runs parallel with community policing as problem oriented policing. So the way it's going to look is that you're going to see more officers off the bike out of the squad car actually engaging in conversation with individuals within their township and the whole idea is to build this level of communication that we increase our dialogue with community members where we hear about issues and concerns much earlier than waiting until it becomes a 911 call or something critical where we're being reactive versus proactive. Okay, that's great. What expectations will you have of your staff and the citizens of Sheboygan County with this community policing effort? With the staff, I think for them it's encouraging them to think outside the box. We're going to change the way we police and quite frankly the feedback I'm getting from not only the staff but also from the deputies themselves is they're actually looking forward to this which makes me feel real good about this that it's being received in a positive way in the department which in a lot of departments that's where the hangup is. The public is ready for it and they're wanting it but the department, hey, wait a minute that's not what I'm accustomed to. Law enforcement's very, they don't like change. The community, a little bit of a change here is we're going to be encouraging them to solve some of their own problems. I think over the course of time law enforcement has actually enabled our community to be dependent on us to solve all the problems and the only thing it's really doing is actually causing more animosity between neighbors. If a neighbor, you two are neighbors and Mike, you got the music cranked up typically what people are doing, they're calling us a uniform law enforcement representative to go out and talk to Adam. Hey, Adam, your neighbors are complaining about the music can you please turn it down? Well, what kind of relationship are the two you're going to have now that you called the police? Well, we want to encourage neighbors to work out some of this stuff on their own and leave law enforcement out so we can focus on the things that we're supposed to be doing and that's investing crimes, addressing fear, crime and disorder and giving us the time to do that. If we're constantly chasing some of the civil matters and some of these problems that can be solved on their own it's taking away the time that we need to really serve our victims and the public in a way that isn't, the responsibilities that are incumbent on us. Now, Todd, earlier you talked about coming to Sheboygan Police Department and having a three-person unit working on community policing now you're talking about the whole department. What's changed in the concept of community policing in that timeframe? I think what has happened is that over since I started up to this point I think that transition of newer officers getting that exposure of community policing in college and technical colleges, the recruits that are coming in are aware of community policing whereas when community policing started, when I first started it was all foreign to all of us. I remember hearing that when I was in Texas and wanted nothing to do with working a storefront in Dallas because that didn't involve chasing robbers and burglars and rapists and everything else. I think that our officers now are looking for that kind of thing and are accepting of it versus older senior officers that are really set in their ways and truly feel for a lot of them who have been around for a long time, hey, that's the way we used to do it but we're expanding on that. It's not a unit, it's a department-wide philosophy and that's where the real hang-up is with a lot of departments throughout the country is they have it as a one-man unit or maybe a three-man unit, some as large as a 16-man unit but it really needs to be a department-wide philosophy and not a program that is really the responsibilities of a select few. Now, as we look at this program, are there any special grants or other things that Sheboygan County might be eligible to implement and fund this operation? You know, the beauty part about community policing is it embraces technology and I think that the direction that we're going with the technology is on the right with our new CAD-RMS system that helps us with our crime analysis and mapping which is key to our problem-solving and our community policing efforts. Really, the philosophy isn't dependent on additional funds. We can do it with the manpower that we have without having to go out there and put ourselves in a position that we're gonna have to come up with more funding if we get funding from the Feds to get more officers and in the end after that, now we're gonna be really responsible for finding the financial resources to fund these officers and the way that we're gonna be doing this is we don't need the additional manpower per se. What we want is a department-wide approach to a different way of policing. Technology is where we can use the grants though to utilize that component to enhance our efforts out there. That's where the money could come into play, camera equipment and things of that nature. Okay, now I know that you have contracts with some of the towns and villages to supply policing to them. How does community policing affect that effort and providing that service to them? It's not. The contracts are still going to continue. Really, the contracts is really geared towards meeting the needs of what the village wants us to do. With the township deputies, we're talking about a way of policing which is really identifying community issues that are outside of simply addressing nuisance problems and giving out ordinance violations. It's really identifying concerns that the public has and taking a proactive approach. So a lot of this is not necessarily going to be an ordinance violation or traffic enforcement. So we wanna keep the contracts still in place so that we're still meeting the needs of the village while identifying other concerns of fear, crime and disorder and addressing those. Now as we look at what's happening out there today, are there any escalating needs for escalating crimes or particular areas of concern that you have for the department? You know, the area that has concerned me the most that is obviously escalating and that is dealing with our mentally challenged individuals, our people that are in need of mental health assistance, our returning vets. There's something about our returning vets that their needs are not being met somehow. And we are confronting them on a more and more regular basis within our communities. And that's a growing concern to me. The Sheriff's Department is a role model with the CIT training where we have officers that are specifically trained in dealing with those that have mental health issues. And instead of simply citing somebody for like disorderly conduct and then putting them behind bars, we're actually addressing them where in the long term, we're getting them the help that they need and addressing their concerns because if we were to simply give an arrest to one of them, put them behind bars, those mental health issues are still there and we're gonna be dealing with them again in the near future. So we're addressing that differently and that I see as a need not only out in the role but also in our jail. So we're increasing the training of our corrections officers to include more CIT training that they're able to deal with these folks in a manner that's more appropriate than just putting them people behind bars and arresting them because that's not solving this growing problem. Yeah, we had a good report at that at a previous County Board meeting and it's a real effective program. I'm glad it's proceeding. With escalating law enforcement challenges, how do you see the detention center? You know, it's pretty full right now. There is some talk of expansion of it. Are there other ways that we can deal with incarceration in the jail? Are there other programs that we can use to handle these individuals? Yeah, prior to my arrival, Chief Helmke had done a implemented a program to help address that and that's alternative through community corrections and that is involving the EMP program, electronic monitoring program. There's also the work-ender program. However, what's been real effective for us up to this point is the EMP program where we have about 33 people out on electronic monitoring. We're able to basically, I guess you can say, imprison them in their home that there is a boundary, a cursory boundary that is set up around their home and that they break that boundary, we're notified and we're able to take corrective action and if they're not abiding by the rules of the program, we take them off the bracelet. With that being said, by having 33 on the bracelet that meet the qualifications, that everybody is classified when they go in, so we're not doing a disservice to the community. In this case, because of space restraints, we're actually doing a service to the community because we're able to prolong the expansions of phases three and four. We're actually to the point, for some reason, jail population, prison population is down about two to 3% across the board, which has actually now allowed us to take a look at moving the females to the detention center out there with the males. So we've actually have done a 180 with our concern of jail space. Now, we heard something in that process that you might close the jail downtown next to the courthouse and when you move those people there, how will that impact your operations? Well, we're not gonna be able to completely close it because we'll still have to have inmates go downtown and be detained down there for their court appearances, and then juveniles are still there. What that does allow us to do, though, is to move some of our corrections staff, both supervisory and corrections officers, to assist with the EMP program out at the detention center because there still needs to be a level of supervision for those that are on the monitoring service. So this really helps us with that need. Well, thanks for the great work you're doing in those areas. Todd, I'll turn it back over to Adam. A lot of emphasis right now on alternatives to incarceration and clearly big dollar savings if we can have alternatives. So I appreciate that work that you and your staff are doing. And one of the other areas that, as you mentioned earlier, the new CAD RMS system, a $1.4 million investment, but as you commented, a very important investment in law enforcement and being shared with the city of Sheboygan. Please tell us a little bit about that system going live this year and how it's being shared with the city. It's being shared in the way of we're able to share information with each other and data, which is really important in law enforcement. When we start, for example, identifying needs in our public, one of the components we'll use is analysis, crime analysis, what's occurring? When is it occurring? What are the motives? And we're able to then focus our attention in those areas based on this system that is sharing data throughout the whole county. We're also able to research complaints involving suspects that may have committed a crime in another community. We're able to see those related reports and assist us with our investigations. So it's something that has had its hiccups. I think it's going to be a while before we get over all the hurdles that there are with this. However, the Sheriff's Office, I am very pleased in how well the employees, the dispatchers, the COs and the road deputies are seeing the future and the benefits from this program and they're accepting the hurdles that we have to overcome. Knowing that in the future, this is a great, great program and we're going to benefit greatly from that. It's just, we've got a huge learning curve and some roadblocks. And I misspoke, I'm glad you expanded on it. It isn't just sharing between the city of Sheboygan and Sheboygan County, it's all the municipalities. Not only utilizing the system but helping pay for the system, which benefits everyone. We only have two minutes remaining and in closing, Sheriff, looking ahead. You haven't even been here a year yet. You're already making a big impact and getting to know your staff. What do you hope to achieve in your first term as Sheriff? What do you see as some goals ahead of you? What I like to see this first term is really getting our township officers engaged with the public and really building on that, taking community policing to the next level and then also starting to develop future leaders. We got a $45,000 grant to share with the city and the rest of the county in building future leaders by bringing in the leadership and police organizations training, which is a three-week course. So we're focusing in on community policing and developing future leaders and if we can get these two things going within this first year, I will be very, very pleased and I'm actually very excited about this year and years to come. And with resources as tight as they are, I'm really excited that you bring the knowledge from our second largest law enforcement agency, the city of Sheboygan, and that I think there'll be greater opportunities to share resources, not only between the Sheriff's Department and the city of Sheboygan, but all the municipalities. Oh, absolutely. And I see us going down that direction now that we're both engaged in that philosophy and we share the same vision. Outstanding. Thank you, Sheriff Prevy, for joining us today, your good work and appreciate not only your good work, but certainly your staff, as you mentioned. We have an excellent Sheriff's Department and thank you for joining us. As you know, every month we try to focus on a different department. Next month will be just a little different. The Sheboygan County owns the building and grounds of UW-Sheboygan, the very campus we're taping this in. It's run by the state and Dean Harderson's gonna be here to talk about what's happening here at UW-Sheboygan. A lot of good work happening here and I hope you'll join us. So until then, on behalf of Chairman Mike Vanderstein and the Full County Board, thanks for joining us.