1/25/24

Health, Protection & Licensing Committee Page 1 CITY OF GILLETT HEALTH, PROTECTION, & LICENSING COMMITTEE Council Chambers – Municipal Building 150 N McKenzie Ave – Gillett, WI 54124 THURSDAY, JANUARY 25, 2024 AT 5:40 PM MINUTES Committee may deviate as needed Meeting Called to Order by Alderperson VanStraten at 5:40 PM. Roll Call Open Meeting Law has been complied with This public meeting is in compliance with all Open Meeting Laws Present: Alderpersons Ashley VanStraten and Irene Drake Alderpersons Jerry Luther and Nanette Mohr, Clerk Treasurer Chelsea Anderson, and Police Chief Shane Breitenbach, and Honorable Judge Randy Winkler. Excused: Mayor Josh McCarthy PUBLIC INPUT: None 1. Discussion and Possible action on minutes from June 12, 2023-Leave Lay, new committee members. 2. Discussion and possible action on possible grant for School Resource Officer- The school is in need to have an officer on sight. One officer for both schools (elementary and high school). There is a Cops Grant available to apply for, it is a 5-year grant, grant pays 3 years and the city would pay for 2 (or school and city, or school, item has not been discussed together with school. School would utilize the officer 2/3 of the year, and the summer the officer would work the road. Level of violence has increased over the years, including problems with younger children. Chief Breitenbach stated the amount of truant children has also risen. Judge Winkler has been working with Dean Brown on the juvenile cases. Gillett is the only school in the County that does not have a School Resource Officer. Check with Oconto County and Suring to see what grant they applied for and cost. 3. Discussion and Possible action on scheduling- Schedules are done the first of the month and distributed to the Clerk’s office and Public Works Office. 4. Discussion and Possible action on overtime- The overtime budget was cut during the budget process because the committee wanted to cut out unnecessary overtime. The chief would change his schedule to work 80 hours (as an employee not in the police union) instead of 84 hours like the officers in the union who are approved to work 12 hours shifts. Officer Buettner resigned at the beginning of the year and the department is down to 2 officers, so the committee decided not to change Chiefs hours at this time. 5. Discussion and Possible action on new officer hire- 9 applicants, 4 are not certified, 3 did not pass initial back ground check, 2 asking for wage out of City’s range. National wage scale to start an officer is $31- 34 dollars an hour, our scale for an officer ends at $27.00. Average in Oconto County is $30 for starting wage. 2024 is the year we negotiate with the Teamsters Union, wages will increase. A veteran officer would require less field training. Will relist the job opening. The County has two contract cars, one is up north and one is near Suamico, will look into cost to contract with Oconto County. Cost of a new officer if we raised the wage scale would be about $80-90,000 with benefits. The committee members asked to look into the County for contract. If it comes to a point to disband the Police Department, it would be very difficult to re-establish our own Police Department again. Chairperson would like to see a local officer become the School Resource Officer and raise wages to get better applicants to complete our local department. 400 calls were handled in the City of Gillet by Oconto County last year (2023). Gillett Health, Protection & Licensing Committee Page 2 Police Department had a total of 1,400 calls in 2023, includes every incident, including building checks, school calls, disturbances, traffic, etc. Alderperson Mohr asked how many citations were written in 2023. Chief did not have the number in front of him, but Clerk had the 2023 Court Questionnaire asked for by the State of WI on her laptop. Total citations for 2023 was 59. 11 were truancies from December. Numbers in the past were 300-500 citations per year. 6. Discussion and Possible action on outstanding issues- Scheduling: Citizens call City Hall or alderpersons to see who is on duty because they do not want to call 911. The Police cannot answer the non-emergency line in the Police building when they are one the road so if a citizen did not get their call answered; it is because they are not in the building. Truancy cases: Judge wanted to address the follow-through of his directive on citations being sent to the next available court date. Judge wrote a memo to the Police Department to have citations written for the next court date. Directly after the memo was received, the citations were not written for the next court date and Judge asked Chief to re-issue the citations to the correct date. Judge stated: A directive was given and was failed to follow through. He quoted the week of December 12, 2023, one referral was not written, on December 18th two more were sent to the police department and not written for January. There were zero (0) initials (citations in court) for January 2024. Officer Buettner picked up the truancies in question and decided there was not enough time to have them ready for the January 3, 2024 court date. She resigned January 11, 2024. To help fix the issue, emails will be sent to the clerk from the school (Dean Brown) to confirm the amount of citations written for the next court date. 7. Committee may go into closed session to discuss matters of employment, promotion, compensation, or performance evaluation data of public employees pursuant to 19.85 (1c) Wis. Stats. MOTION: Drake/VanStraten Motion to go into Closed Session to include clerk, Judge, Chief, and council members at 6:55 pm. Voice Vote: All Ayes MOTION CARRIED 8. Committee will return to open session and may take action on matters discussed in closed session. MOTION: Drake/VanStraten Motion to return to Open Session at 7:45 pm. Voice Vote: All Ayes MOTION CARRIED 9. Set Next Meeting Date- To Be Determined. 10. Adjourn at 7:45 PM. MOTION: Drake/VanStraten Motion to adjourn. Voice Vote: All Ayes MOTION CARRIED Respectfully Submitted by Clerk Treasurer Chelsea Anderson