Community, Schools and Fiscal Responsibility
By Trey Foerster
Two candidates are vying for the position of Waupaca County Sheriff in the Tuesday, Aug. 9, primary election. The winner of that contest will most likely win the position in the Nov. 8 election.
You can read the first part of this series on the candidate debate here.
You can read the second part of this series on the Waupaca County Sheriff’s Department here.
You can read the third part of this series on relationship with the District Attorney’s Office here. Questions were submitted to Waupaca County District Attorney Veronica Isherwood, but she chose not to respond to any of them.
You can read the fourth part of this series on Waupaca County Circuit Court Security here.
For this fifth part of the series, each candidate was asked questions specifically on three areas: Community, Schools, and Fiscal Responsibility.
Cameron Durrant
Community
What is your perception of the role of sheriff outside the Waupaca County Sheriff’s Office?
The sheriff is the top law enforcement officer in the county. The sheriff needs to lead by example. This means the sheriff needs to be honest, transparent, and accountable to everyone in Waupaca County.
As the Sheriff, how do you intend to be involved with and continue to foster a proactive and positive relationship with your community?
I would have the sheriff’s office continue to participate in community-based events such as Meet the Fleet, Shop with a Cop, Battle of the Badges. I would encourage the officers to create new events that involve the community and officers’ interaction.
I would attend and speak at community events, speak at community organizations, and hold meetings for the public to voice concerns.
What does the statement “The police are the public and the public are the police.” mean to you? Explain how a breakdown of this relationship is detrimental to all.
I read the statement as an officer is the same as a citizen. They have to obey the same laws. They live in the same communities and children attend the same schools. Police need the public to assist us in doing our jobs. The sheriff’s office needs to have the public’s trust. We need the public to come forward to report crimes, give witness statements, help search for missing people, come forward with evidence, and help support department programs.
The public needs a law enforcement agency that has integrity and trust. The public wants their officers to do the job right the first time. Waupaca County citizens do not want to be victims multiple times.
How do damaged relationships with community partners such as DA office and Waupaca PD negatively affect public safety?
Having a damaged relationship with the DA’s office makes it difficult to prosecute cases. The Detective Division works very close with the District Attorney. We work cases that may need search warrants, subpoenas, and legal advice. It makes it very difficult if the Detective Captain restricts what contact we can have with the DA or will not contact the DA on major cases because they don’t get along. Cases are thrown out of court because of problems like this.
In the June 16 debate, you stated that one of your three top priorities was communication with the media. What is being done now that is good, what needs to be fixed, and what are you going to do to maintain good relationships with media?
Communication with the media has to be timely, accurate, truthful, and not too much information to hinder an investigation. The media has a job to do also. If they are not getting information from the investigating agency, they may look elsewhere for that information.
Waupaca County Sheriff’ Office uses social media well. They send out information on Facebook on a regular basis.
There seems to be disagreement with you and Wilz as to the biggest crime problems in Waupaca County. At the June 16 debate you said drugs, Wilz stated human trafficking. Which is it and explain in detail why.
The biggest crime issue in Waupaca County is illegal drugs. Drugs ultimately lead into most other crimes: homicides, armed robberies, burglary, theft, and sexual assaults. I have been a detective sergeant for six years. During that time, the detective division has worked one human trafficking case. We have two detectives that work only drug cases. Look in the Waupaca County Post. See how many drug cases vs. human trafficking cases are in there. Please don’t get me wrong, human trafficking may be happening in Waupaca County. It simply is not reported or investigated with the frequency as illegal drug use.
Explain in detail your position on red flag laws, the 4th Amendment search and seizure rights, and the role of the sheriff. Does the sheriff, as chief law enforcement official of the county, have the discretion to choose which laws to enforce or not or does that discretion lie within the scope of the county DA or state AG?
I support the 2nd Amendment, but I will enforce laws legislators create. I support the 4th Amendment also. That is one of the reasons that I am running for sheriff. Detective Captain Thobaben instructed Deputy Stephens to illegally search a vehicle. She then tried to cover up the incident by changing Deputy Stephen’s report without his knowledge.
Officers do have discretion on referring charges. The District Attorney or Attorney General have discretion on what crimes to charge.
It is a rare that a sheriff or D.A. would take a complete stance against enforcing laws created by the legislature. It would be a dangerous stance to not support or enforce red flag laws. It brings up many issues if one person hurts or kills another, and the sheriff’s office had the opportunity to prevent it.
What are the strengths/shortcomings of the WCSD work with local law enforcement agencies? How would you improve relationships?
The sheriff’s office personnel work well with the other police departments well. Communication and trust are good amongst them. Trust was broken by the Sheriff when he contacted a former employee about an out of state court order. He then did not tell the other officers the truth when he was questioned about it. The entire sheriff’s office trustworthiness gets questioned when the top officer in the department isn’t truthful.
Gaining back trust will take time. Communication will be the key to get the trust back. I would work with all the agencies to fix the past problems.
Schools
What are Wilz’s successes/failures on school safety? Are drive-by patrols really effective safety in this day? Has there been an active shooter drill with local PDs in 2021 or 2022? If so, when and where?
The only success Sheriff Wilz has completed in school safety is, he encourages the patrol officers to complete extra patrols. The extra patrols are officers driving through the school parking lot. This act may help deter a person from causing to harm others at that time. It does not do much to protect the school.
The sheriff’s office has failed in training its officers in active shooter training. The last training for active shooter at the sheriff’s office was in 2019. I was wrong in the debate when I stated it was in 2018.
Since 2019, Waupaca County Sheriff’s Office has hired 11 new patrol officers. That means over half of the patrol officers have never been trained in active shooter outside of field training.
What would you do differently on school safety; where has the Sheriff’s office failed and succeeded?
I would have a yearly training on active shooter. I would encourage the officers to do extra patrols at the schools during school hours, but I would ask them to walk through the schools when doing the patrols. I would assist the police departments with any needs they may need protecting the schools.
Fiscal Responsibility
How has the Sheriff’s office utilized the county’s financial resources? What has succeeded and how can it be improved?
Sheriff Wilz has done well keeping the budget down the first couple years in office. What he is not saying is that COVID shut down helped save the department a large amount of money. Overtime was down and training was slowed/stopped. Sheriff Wilz received COVID funding that he used to purchase equipment instead of coming out of the budget.
I don’t have a good answer about how I could improve spending. I would have to see the whole budget to provide a better answer.
As wages for law enforcement continue to lax, what incentives would you try and offer your employees to make up for this growing issue and retain your staff?
Pay increases and benefits are tough for the sheriff to offer. Most of these are decided at the county board level. I would push for a more competitive wages compared to agencies within Waupaca County.
I would offer training or duties in areas that they are interested in. I would work on building the morale so they would enjoy coming to work. I would show the employees the appreciation that they deserve.
Timothy Wilz
Incumbent Sheriff Timothy Wilz declined to answer the questions.
“I will have to respectfully decline to answer your 35 questions. My operation of the Sheriff’s Office and my campaign are consuming my time. No disrespect to you or your paper,” he noted in an email.
The questions were as follows:
Community
What is your perception of the role of sheriff outside the Waupaca County Sheriff’s Office?
As the Sheriff, how do you intend to be involved with and continue to foster a proactive and positive relationship with your community?
What does the statement “The police are the public and the public are the police.” mean to you? Explain how a breakdown of this relationship is detrimental to all.
How do damaged relationships with community partners such as DA office and Waupaca PD negatively affect public safety?
In the June 16 debate, Durrant stated that one of his three top priorities was communication with the media. What is being done now that is good, what needs to be fixed, and what are you going to do to maintain good relationships with media?
There seems to be disagreement with you and Durrant as to the biggest crime problems in Waupaca County. At the June 16 debate Durrant said drugs, you stated human trafficking. Which is it and explain in detail why.
Explain in detail your position on red flag laws, the 4th Amendment search and seizure rights, and the role of the sheriff. Does the sheriff, as chief law enforcement official of the county, have the discretion to choose which laws to enforce or not or does that discretion lie within the scope of the county DA or state AG?
What are the strengths/shortcomings of the WCSD work with local law enforcement agencies? How would you improve relationships?
Schools
In the June 16 debate, you said “more programs in the community and schools” was a top priority. What are these programs and their cost?
What are your successes/failures on school safety? Are drive-by patrols really effective safety in this day? Has there been an active shooter drill with local PDs in 2021 or 2022? If so, when and where?
What would you do differently on school safety; where has the Sheriff’s office failed and succeeded?
Fiscal Responsibility
How has the Sheriff’s office utilized the county’s financial resources? What has succeeded and how can it be improved?
As wages for law enforcement continue to lax, what incentives would you try and offer your employees to make up for this growing issue and retain your staff?