It is time to talk about a serious subject, went from light-hearted with Kevin McDougal.
This was a serious subject.
The start of a police department is going through a little bit of turmoil right now, and
with me to talk about that, our two gentlemen, officer and the president of the start of
an incident, professional police association is Brent McCoy, the vice president of the
organization, officer Matt Roganski, Roganski, I said there are, you guys get real close
to that mic.
I want to hear every word you have to say.
I want to miss one syllable.
When did this all come down?
First of all, before we do that, what is being proposed is to disband the sort of
in police department and have the received sheriff's department take over whatever the
sort of in police department was going to do.
When did you get knowledge of this?
I had a board meeting probably about three weeks ago, and there was a lot of surprise to
that the current interim chief didn't have any idea that this was going on.
The village president had no clue during the meeting, a couple of sheriff's department,
the sheriff himself, and then another sheriff employee came in and kind of surprised everyone,
except for a couple members of the village board, and a couple days later we got an email
from our village administrator saying that they were looking at outside employment up
and to this point, there had been no discussions that this was going to go on, that this was
in talks, and we're actually in the process right now of officers were looking forward
to having a new chief hired, because prior chief retired back in June 3rd, and so we
were looking forward to getting a fresh face in office and looking to build that department
and continue the growth with the community during that time, and then this news was dropped
on us unexpectedly after no conversations beforehand.
Well, how did they keep it a secret?
It's a good question.
Usually everything leaks out when deals with the public, but there were no leaks.
Yeah, there was no leaks with this, it kind of just came out of nowhere with it.
I had heard no discussions from any other departments around Racine County, I worked with
a lot of them from Racine, Kenosha, Wallworth counties, and during this time with my employment
through Gateway and stuff that through the Academy at Gateway, there had been nothing had
come up with this.
Usually, like you said, something leaks with this, because this is a big change for any
department that you're going through.
The village of Waterford just went through this, and that got out pretty quickly.
I think there were some discussions that were ahead behind closed doors with this and
some contacts were made.
That's the only logical reason that we can think where this happened, because there had been
no discussions on any prior board meetings over the past several months leading up to
this that would indicate that this change was coming.
How did the rank and file feel about this when they first heard it?
Yeah, we're pretty shocked.
You know, we, it's, yeah, it's something new.
I mean, it's just hearing that news, just all of us are just kind of in shock and what's
going on.
Now, what happens to the spirit of the police officers?
Yeah.
So, sort of in PD officers, they have an opportunity to interview with what other agents
see right now.
It's the Racine County Sheriff's Department that that is going to look into coming in and
has actually provided a contract that I've been told to the village themselves.
But with the officers, nothing has, is guaranteed, right?
The only thing that is promised is that you'll get an opportunity to interview if you choose
to apply with that, but they don't have to hire you through that process.
So, luckily, you know, for us, we had some protections from our past union contracts
that we had put in there that some officers have for about six months with that.
If they do, you'll get let go, but nothing is promised as far as you're going to get hired
on by the Racine County Sheriff's Department or any other agency that takes you over with
that.
And some of these people have many years.
Yeah, in.
Yeah, we have officers that range from 22, 23 years of experience to officers that just
started within the past year.
Most of our officers average probably five plus years of experience.
And with that is you got community knowledge that they've gained, the training that they've
put in.
You know, we get hours and hours every year of additional training that these officers
go through and to lose that and to lose that connection that these officers have gained
with the village is unfortunate.
So what's the reaction though, a shock?
Yeah, yeah, everyone, you know, initially we were shocked and then there was a lot of
worry and skepticism that came around the officers around here.
But I think, you know, through a good planning and discussions at Matt and I and Andrew Wagner
with the W Wisconsin Professional Police Association have had with them.
We've tried to kind of, you know, take it away from the shock aspect to more of a little
let's work through this.
Nothing's been made official yet, but we can tell they're heading down that route.
That's very clear on the actions that they've taken.
As far as the board has taken, what's the date of this they want to do the song?
They have not given us a date yet.
And the fact that it all happened so very quickly is a little surprising to us.
The fact that the first board meeting that they had, I believe it was the second Tuesday
in July that they had this board meeting, they already had a contract in hand.
So you can read behind the lines and read into that if you want on what that means.
But I don't know of any change like this that has happened where there hasn't been some
public comment period or some input from the public beforehand, except for ours.
And there has been no public input until they, it was first brought up that they were
talking about this in the closed session.
We're talking to two officers from the Strait Event's professional police association
Brent McCoy is the president of the association map against key.
Same thing right?
Yes.
Against right.
There's no arm in there.
Against key.
Yes.
Against key.
Against key.
Why did I put an arm in there?
Why did I do that?
No, it's an eye.
Okay.
And you're the vice president of the organization.
We're talking about the Strait Event Police Department.
They wanted to expand it and take, they were seen County Sheriff's Department take over
all operations.
So there won't be a Strait Event Police Department anymore.
It would be the County Sheriff's Department actually handling all the emergencies and police
actions in Strait Event.
The recap case you're just joining.
You were saying you were just notified at a board meeting.
Yeah.
What was the last week?
The second week in July, so I think it's July 9th somewhere around there.
Yeah.
And it's kind of shocking because you didn't see it coming.
Yeah, I had no clue that this was even on the radar.
But do you see any pluses in this at all?
If you don't, we'll go right to the minuses.
You know, I mean, the village claims that there's a money aspect saving to this.
There are the numbers that we have heard range from anything between, you know, this
is me giving the village side a little bit of credit here between three to four million
dollars over five years.
But with that, no numbers have been provided to us on where that savings is coming from
and how they're getting that savings.
There has been no discussions about, you know, what's going to happen to the building,
the equipment, the officers, you know, severance packages or anything like that or insurance
or stuff like that after they leave.
So we don't know as a union, you know, and that's not more important than the union is
the citizens of Strait Event, right?
They're the ones that are going to end up having to deal with this.
How do they feel about it?
If you've gotten a feel of vibe from the people in the community.
Yeah.
Over the past couple of weeks, right?
We've been out a lot of people, family members and other community members have come
forward.
They're shocked by this too.
They don't understand why they don't understand the whole money issue, budget issue because
they have never heard of a budget issue in Strait Event as far as we're aware.
I don't think you've ever heard of anything, Matt, about it and it's surprising.
They want from talking, probably 95% of the people that we talk to are supportive.
They want their own local police department or some of the, some of the downside to this
is what?
Yeah.
So from the downsides, right?
You're losing officers that are invested in your community, right?
We are officers that live in the community.
We have been there for years.
Like I said earlier, we've got officers that have been there for 20 plus years.
They know the neighbors.
They know the people that are there.
They know what cars are supposed to be in the driveway and all of that.
They have built those relationships.
When you change and go to a county agency for an example or any outside agency, there's
no guarantee that those officers are going to be the same officers that are going to show
up to your house.
So for example, like I've been on day shift now for five plus years, Matt's been on third
shift.
People know who Matt and I are just because of we've been there for so long.
We know we've built that relationship with those people.
Yeah, it's, you know, the big thing is just communication going door to door.
We've got some pliers we've been passing on and I'd say at 90, 95% of the people that
have we've come in contact with that we've talked to just don't know anything about
this.
This has been very little information that we've been provided or the community that has
been provided with what exactly is going on.
And I think it was yeah, that that second second meeting in July or maybe a third meeting
in July.
I we know that there's a contract that didn't hold up and they spoke about and nobody
seen it.
So we don't we don't know what's going on and that's kind of what we want to get
is more communication between us, the village and the public.
If anybody wants to know what it feels like, if you work for a company and somebody bought
it or there's a takeover and you didn't know what was going on.
Do I have my job?
What can I transfer?
What's going to happen to my insurance?
What's going to you don't know these things?
Kind of scary.
If you were a young family with a whole future ahead of you, I mean, it's kind of scary.
Yeah.
Now it was just happening a lot across America.
I think it's starting to pick up a little more in Wisconsin at least there's a couple
agencies.
Kimberly is going through the same thing with combined locks and all that.
There was another agency up north that that went through it and the village of Waterford
just tried to go through this recently within the past six months, seven months.
They had contracted services out.
They had agreed contract services out with Racine County Sheriff's Department.
But that fell through for some reason with then there's multiple rumors out there on
why that fell through.
But in the end, the village community members and the village board decided that they wanted
to keep their own local police department.
And I think those questions need to be asked to those from our board members, to their
board members to say, why did you guys decide to stay with it?
And I think they're going to find out the local citizens want their local police officers
there.
Now, I've heard it done with fire departments.
Yeah.
Where do they contract?
They have different fire departments.
Yeah.
They're expensive to run a fire department.
Yes.
Trucks can be up to a million dollars those.
Yeah.
Fire department fleets.
And I understand it's an expensive thing to run a fire department.
So when do the citizens have a chance to bring in their voices out?
So the next meeting is on August 12th.
It's a continual committee meeting.
And that's going to be a village hall in, uh, in start of the 20 to 180, 89th straight
at 6 p.m.
So if you keep updated on the village website, village, start of a website, they post
their meetings.
Now that meeting time may change.
It may be five, five, thirty.
So keep an eye on that.
But that is the continual meeting is where the board allows discussion to take place between
board members and citizens to ask questions with that.
So we're looking forward to that date because we're hoping that we get some answers about
what is going on?
What's that contract look like?
And I know our citizens are going to show up.
But we know I'm picturing, I'm picturing those meetings that some of the lawmakers are going
through and they hold their town hall meetings.
And it's a chaotic free for all people just scream.
I wouldn't hold a town hall meeting if I knew people were going to scream at me, but they
do it.
Yeah.
And that's, that's our plan.
You know, not to cause chaos in there, but we want it to be civil and stuff.
But we want our citizens because this is their decision, right?
Like this is their choice if the police partner not or it should be their choice.
They have to be the ones that want to ask these tough questions to these board members to
figure out what's going on.
How does this benefit the village?
How does it not?
I'm confident that all of our officers at the Sturgeon Police Department will find jobs
elsewhere in Wisconsin, right?
I have confidence that we have such high quality officers that they have the ability to find
those jobs if this goes through.
But this is bigger than us, I believe.
I think this is a citizen issue at the Sturgeon Police Department.
Do you want local police or do you want a county agency to come in, which that county
agency, right?
We got Interstate I 94 right there, they got the city rescuing is the county agency always
going to have a squad in Sturgeon like they promised or are they going to be assisting
in the city rescuing or on an interstate?
No.
If somebody in Sturgeon Police got an emergency or problem, they call, you guys are located
right there with it because Sturgeon is not that big.
So how long will take the Racine County Sheriff's Department to have someone?
Yeah.
I mean, I think what the problem is we haven't gotten much information.
So a lot of that is still we have questions about.
There's been a couple of posts on Facebook by Village Board members that have mentioned
they were looking at having at least two county deputies that are on the road.
So yeah, there could still be, you know, there's still as ideally somebody in the village under
what they're proposing.
But this question of, you know, if there's an incident on the interstate, are those cars
going to be pulled up out towards the interstate?
For example, another thing is just the coverage we have during the days, for example, during
the week, you've got up to five or six, you know, when we're fully staffed, you've got
up to five or six people that can respond to calls in the village.
And that's a huge difference from the two deputies or two county squads that they're proposing.
So, you know, I can't say for sure, but I would think that would definitely impact response
time.
You have 11 full time?
Yeah, we have 11 full time and then three command staff.
Yep.
That's a lot of people just, you know, they just like, goodbye.
Yeah.
And, you know, from what I heard, the Sheriff's Department is only, if this does go through
only looking to take on nine officers, right?
And like we talked about earlier, there's no guarantee that it's going to be nine
start of an officer's that they're going to take on.
They're allowing us the opportunity to interview, but they don't have to hire, hire on
our officers for that.
You would almost think they'll be done by seniority, too.
So the officers that are working in stardament, let's say they end up getting a job with
the Sheriff's Department.
They're going to be at the bottom of the list, that's seniority.
And if those positions are done like that, does a good chance those officers are never
going to be actually assigned to stardament again?
What about, um, do you have any friends in the Sheriff's Department?
Did you speak to anybody there and say, how do you guys feel about this?
Yeah.
So I have connections, right?
Because I teach in the academy as well, Gateway Law Enforcement Academy.
And through my connections with them, through recruits that come through that are now deputies
and stuff.
And even at the state level, I have received phone calls and text messages from deputies
that say, we don't have enough coverage right now for our own areas.
We don't need to be taking over stardament, right?
And take that for what it's worth from them, but when you have your own employees or deputies
that are saying we don't want coverage and stardament, that's a problem.
And the money aspect of this now, instead of paying the police officers, they're going
to pay the Sheriff's Department.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They're going to save money.
Yeah.
They are going to save money.
That's what they say by that.
Yeah.
So there's a couple of things with that, right?
They say they're going to save a certain amount.
They have not given us that exact amount yet with that that they're going to save year
over year.
But at any point in week, you can ask around to contract with services.
Those fees that they initially give you are going to go up, right?
Like every other fee that is out there, like your taxes, right?
Have your taxes ever generally gone down a whole lot?
Those fees are going to continue to go up that the Sheriff's Department is going to charge
us.
And then they can also charge the village additional fees for other services that they
provide, such as special events and stuff like that.
So, and then additional coverage for extra patrols or traffic grants.
So when you do, like, the Fourth of July, fire works in stardament, which is a big deal.
Huge deal.
And you've got to have extra police down there.
It's going to be a Sheriff's Department.
Yeah.
So, for example, when we do our Fourth of July fireworks, you know, we've got 10,000 citizens
that come in just for that.
If not more, the park is completely full.
We have all of our officers are in work in that day for that.
So that's 11 plus our three command staff.
And frankly, we need, we still need more for that.
The question is, is the Sheriff's Department going to be able to provide that amount of
people because then what's going to happen with the rest of the county, with their officers?
So.
And the remaining two minutes, I want you to speak now, not to me, but to the people
of stardament and the people of recene, tell them what's on your mind.
Yeah.
So we talked about this is surprising.
This is not something that we had anticipated.
We had not heard about happening.
You know, I ask the citizens of stardament and then the citizens of recene area, would
you rather have local control or would you rather have an outside agency to come in and
do your police services?
Just look at the quality of service aspect of it.
We are officers at the stardament police department that live in your village, that have worked
in your village for years, that know your citizens, that know your family members.
We go to your schools where your kids are here in the day.
We do walk around.
We check on them.
We do traffic enforcement.
We are there for you.
And ultimately, if the citizens wants local control and want to have a say, because in the history
of law enforcement, the police department is a representation of the general public.
The general public dictates the direction that the police department goes.
With local control, you get that.
So for an outside agency, you're losing some of that local control aspect with it.
You may not be able to get in contact with the person that you want to contact, that you
want to speak to about a case.
Because of their case load, your cases may get backlogged a little bit, maybe put on
the back burner.
The stardament, we're there for you.
We're always around 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Officers are willing to help you out as much as possible.
But we need to hear your voice.
We hope you come out to the next board meeting, which is next Tuesday at 6 p.m. at Village
Hall.
We want to see you there.
We want you to ask questions.
We want you to know what's going on in your local government, because this affects you
more than anybody else.
Is there a chance this can be turned around?
Yeah, absolutely.
I believe so.
So it's not in concrete.
No.
I don't know what we have been told as a union.
I think there's, I think we have a good shot that the Village Board, if enough people
show up and listen and voice their concerns that they go ahead and, and they do the right
thing for the citizens and what their constituents want.
After all, they're elected by the people.
They should be doing what the people want for this.
And that's why we're asking that the Village shares more information.
And then we're asking that the public show up to these events.
If you can't show up to the next meeting is August 12th.
If you can't show up to that meeting, make sure you email your elected officials in
the village and let them know what's what you're thinking, because that's what they're
looking for is that feedback.
And if any board members want to come on, the air too, contact me here at the radio
station.
We'll put you on too.
Thank you guys for coming in.