Town board meeting changed to Thursday, April 3rd

The Town Board meeting, regualarly scheduled for Tuesday has been moved to Tuesday, April 3rd, due to Tuesday, April 1 voting. The meeting is at it's normal time of 7pm.

Police Merger informational meeting

A reminder there is the public information meeting regarding police department merger proposals. The meeting starts at 7pm at the Grand Chute Town Hall. The public will be invited to speak.

Firefighter levy override referendum language

I've fielded a couple of inquiries by residents regarding the language that is on the ballot for the fire fighter referendum.

The referendum appears on the ballot as follows:

"Under State Law the increase in the levy of the Town of Grand Chute for the tax to be imposed for the next fiscal year, 2009, is limited to 2%, which results in a levy of $8,373,900. Shall the Town of Grand Chute be allowed to exceed this limit and increase the levy for the next fiscal year, 2009 AND ON AN ONGOING BASIS, by a total of 10.5% (for the fiscal year 2009) resulting in a levy of $9,070,900 for the purpose of hiring an additional six (6) fire fighters and additional part time firefighters."

The phrase "and on an ongoing basis" was concern in particular for one resident, who questioned if the levy would increase each year an additional 10.5%. Yikes! Other residents wonder why the language is so confusing, some commenting they thought six additional firefighters would cost 9 million dollars.

Town Administrator Rohloff explains the amount and reasoning behind the language:

"The "and on an ongoing basis" is language required by the State. It simply means that the additional $697,000 that we raise may continue on the tax roll in subsequent years. The 10.5% increase is the one time impact due to the $697,00 increase. In future years, the amount will continue to be capped by state levy limits.

Unfortunately, the way that the state budget is adopted (via the Governor's "Frankenstein veto"), referendum language such as this is required by law. We wanted to simplify this language, but the Town's attorney advised us that we could not amend this language."

More on the referendum early next week!

Police merger analysis-part three-Outagamie County

The following is my personal analysis of the Outagamie County Sheriff Merger Proposal. These are observations regarding the proposal after careful research of other police department merger processes.

Analysis of Outagamie County Sheriff’s Department
Merger Proposal

Organizational Structure

OCS does not assign a specific chief deputy to Grand Chute, but rather utilizes three captains who oversee the entire county. Eliminating a deputy chief position takes away a centralized and localized authority-figure for a department. A chief provides a face to the community for their issues and concern. There is no long-term or short term plan from OCS, other than it will remain the same for now. This is turning absolute control of a department to the sheriff, who in essence does not have answer to anyone other than the county board. GC only has four representatives out of 36 on this board. This is placing a huge amount of trust in the sheriff to operate GC more effectively than a chief and little recourse if the sheriff does not perform to the public or town board’s satisfaction. The sheriff is also an elected position, and has the potential to be replaced every four years, creating a different management style that may not coordinate with Grand Chute’s strategic vision of their police department.

Criminal Investigations

There are the same issues associated with the APD proposal. Also, it is unclear if one or two of the current detective duties are being eliminated and placed as a line officer.

Specialized Services

GC taxpayers already pay for county specialized services such as K-9, boat patrol, dive team, snow patrol. State statutes dictate that the county sheriff is bound by law to provide existing services to each township. Therefore, there is limited advantage to merge with the county for this reason. GC officers would have an opportunity to join the specialized teams.

Elimination of Police and Fire Commission

A police and fire commission is made up of a group of professionals who have experience in those respected fields. They understand the complexities involved with issues such as hiring, suspending, demoting or terminating an officer if the need arises, and make recommendations directly to the town board, assisting in the hiring process from the beginning. OCS proposal eliminates such a commission, and places these burdens on the County Supervisors who may not have experience or knowledge in police departmental matters.

Facilities

OCS proposes to move their administrative offices to the town hall and occupy space in addition to the existing police department area. The department is willing to lease out this space, but will require remodeling of 4306 sq. ft. of empty area designated for future growth needs of all departments at the town hall. Serious examination would be required to see if this option would be available, or if the remodel would cause premature outgrowth of the town hall, which is not in GC taxpayer’s best interest.

Crime Statistics

OCS crime statistics for assisting GC with calls are misleading.

The numbers include over 670 GPS (ankle bracelet) checks which are a responsibility of OCS jail. GC did not call for 504 traffic stops. These include traffic stops initiated by OCS in Grand Chute and should not be considered assisting calls in GC.

Coverage

The inherent difference between a police department and a sheriff’s department is that a sheriff’s deputy’s boundary is county-wide, and if the metropolitan area does not cover the majority of the existing county, policing can be very rural-oriented. This is a different experience than urban-related policing. OCS proposes to keep the same patrol personnel within GC until 2010, whereby they can put in for other assignments. Because of the open movement, GC may lose officers who have been trained and groomed for urbanized and community-minded police work.

Once again, accepting that coverage remains the same would require placing a large amount of trust in the sheriff’s proposal. The sheriff has the authority at any time to pull officers from their district and re-assign. This can be seen in the attached photo from the front page of the October 4, 2006 Post-Crescent, where the Town of Buchanan officer is seen directing traffic outside of Freedom school after a suspected shooting incident.

Budget

OCS budget includes GCs designated overtime (explained in APD what GC plans to do with this). OCS uses this money to help fund their proposal. OCS dictates that any overtime would be above and beyond and paid for by GC.

Unclear if one records clerk position is eliminated.

No clear cut costs in startup. See Appleton for questions regarding this.

Police merger analysis-part two-Appleton

The following is my personal analysis of the Appleton Police Department Meger Proposal. These are observations regarding the proposal after careful research of the police department merger processes. Outagamie analysis to follow.

Analysis of Appleton Police Department Merger Proposal

Facilities

APD does not give a cost estimate for any remodeling that would be need at the Grand Chute station in order to move their Northern District of operations to the Town Hall building. In fact, Chief Walsh indicated to the Safety and Licensing Committee at the meeting on February 14, 2008 that Grand Chute would be expected to pick up all costs, referring to these costs as “tools for the project.”

APD does not propose leasing out space from GC for using the GC location as their Northern District base of operations. Grand Chute taxpayers will, in effect, be paying for APD to use space in the station without charge, including the offices, parking garage, phone lines, internet and utilities.

An increase in services is not offered to GC residents with APD operating out of GCs building, as there is no proposed increase to staff additional hours at the station.

The facility issues that APD target as unsatisfactory for GC are untrue and offer little benefit to Grand Chute. They include:

Firearms range.

The town has a good relationship with Fox Valley Technical College, located in Grand Chute, for their firing range instruction. This is a state-wide, accredited program that officers use to renew their firearms certification.

Training room

Grand Chute also has a large training room, and can use other rooms at the town hall. GC officers will have access to a large community room one block away when the new fire station is complete fall of 2008.

Evidence process rooms and storage

Grand Chute does have state of the art evidence process rooms, as new equipment was purchased when the town hall was built eight years ago. Right now, there already is property and evidence storage, and the empty space at the town hall can serve as additional storage when town grows. Furthermore, the proposal does not address who will own the existing equipment with an APD merger, and does not guarantee prevention of removal of said equipment from on site.

Fleet

The report does not address the detailed cost expenditures for fleet maintenance. Appleton wants to buy out the fleet, but will Appleton charge back Grand Chute for vehicle maintenance and gas? Much of Grand Chute maintenance is done by a staff mechanic, and the vehicles are also washed at Grand Chute. This is an additional annual expense, which is above the cost of the merger and not identified.

Operational Considerations

Over the years GC has developed a respectable, dedicated, investigative staff that has gained recognition for their work, and has a high percentage of solvability to their cases. The department currently has five investigators, who specifically address town issues. In APD proposal, GC will lose of control of the investigative units and will no longer have a dedicated investigative team. APD proposes to take two investigators, including GCs police computer specialist, who was contracted out to Appleton for $10,000 last year. GC would lose revenue by giving up this specialized staff person, as officer is contracted out to other departments as well. The remaining investigators would be placed as patrol officers or placed on line positions. This is a disservice to our golden badge, award-winning, specialized investigative team, and a disservice to GC residents.

A tri-county investigative task force could be formed instead, to address the cross-jurisdictional problems citied in the Appleton proposal. This would be similar to the MEG unit, where officers from all municipalities in the tri-county area pool their resources together for multi-jurisdictional crimes. This would be a benefit to all communities, not just Appleton and Grand Chute.

There is no breakdown of what the CSO patrol or duties will look like. There is no clear explanation of how the expansion is going to take place, or how vehicle maintenance will be performed. There is just a verbal speculation that there is the possibility or opportunity for expansion.

Neighborhoods in transition

Grand Chute takes similar approach in identifying problem areas, and utilizing the town’s resources. This approach can most recently be seen with April Aire Mobile Home Park. Looking at call logs, and reacting accordingly is a basic principle of police work and is already instituted in the town. Merging with Appleton does not increase the benefit for this area, as the town will not be able to use the city inspectors, health inspectors and fire department. None of our departments are cross-jurisdictional. There would have to be a separate coordination with Grand Chute, which is already in place. When Town Supervisors receive direct complaints from citizens, they would have to be filtered through the Deputy Chief, who ultimately answers to the Appleton mayor.

Uniforms

Keeping uniforms the same, except for the patches and badges, is not only a catalyst for low officer morale, but an indication in the lack of understanding of the camaraderie needed for a successful merger. GC officers will physically be labeled as not being fully included in a merged department to both to APD officers and the community. Non uniformity ultimately says they are not truly part of the team. Additionally, GC officers are not assured they will feel a part of a merged department with the uncertainty of an 18 month trial period. GC officers will be subjected to a state of limbo during this period, with the potential for them to feel like SCAB workers at a foundry. They do not know if they will be “shipped back to where they came from.” This is not fair to the dedicated officers of Grand Chute.

Municipal

There is no strategic plan or clear financials as to where revenue collected from municipal citations will go. Currently, fees collected from citations help offset our judicial budget. Citations within a merged department will be written as Appleton Metro, and there is no indication that the revenues from these citations will be kept in Grand Chute. In fact, the proposal seems to lean toward it becoming a revenue stream for Appleton. However, the judge and his staff’s salaries of $79,800 comes out of the Municipal Court budget. There is also a $60,000 line item for professional and legal services for representation of contested cases. There is no indication of which municipality will pay these fees, even though Appleton seems to want to collect the revenue. A significant clarification needs to be addressed in this area, and cannot be worked out “as we go along.”

Crime Analysis and Operations

There is no indication that non-represented people in the clerical office will have same seniority and wage advantages as the Appleton staff.

Union

There is no indication that the Union will agree with the terms, only that the union will have to bargain with a hopeful satisfactory outcome. Furthermore, there is no cost identified with the staff and union representative time needed to collective bargain, or who will pay for this additional cost.

Staffing needs

There is no strategic plan or 3-5-10 year outlook concurrent with GC future growth projections. Taxpayers do not have estimation as to how adding personnel will affect the budget down the road. Right now, the town board is working hard to find money in the existing budget for additional staff and not filling other requested positions, in favor of directing money to hire more officers. A loss of ownership in the department could lead to a lack of vested interest for future board members to do the same.

Other financial issues and hidden costs

The new chief deputy will in essence be building a merged department from scratch. It is impossible that one person can be the sole coordinator for an entire merger. It is a reasonable assumption that staff will be assigned to help the deputy chief. There is no indication of who will be assigned, or how much time will be taken away from each department to facilitate this merger. There is no indication how much this will cost, how much time will be spent away from normal duties, or who will pay the bill.

There are legal issues that need to be addressed and they will require the services of a legal team. There is no estimate to the cost of these services, or who will pay for them.

Grand Chute officers will need to go through training in order to acclimate themselves to Appleton’s policies and procedures. There is no indication as to what kind of training will be needed, what costs are associated with this training, or who will pay for these costs.

Grand Chute’s plan was to reduce the overtime budget to fund additional officers once the department is at full staffing levels. Currently, while new officers are trained, full-time and part-time officers fill the vacant shifts. This is the main reason Grand Chute has had to budget enough funds to cover the overtime shifts. The Appleton proposal uses this overtime budget to match Grand Chute officer salaries to Appleton officer scale. This creates a void of funds that were to be designated toward hiring additional officers.

Conclusion

The APD proposal offers many benefits for their department, and little in return for GC residents, with GC taxpayers footing the bill. An18-month test drive is unacceptable. The amount of unresolved issues that are passed off with a “we’ll figure it out as we go along” approach undermines the credibility of this proposal. A lack of understanding or explanation of cost analysis associated with such a merger also prevents consideration.

Police merger analysis-part one

The following is part one of an analysis I submitted to other board members regarding merger proposals submitted by Appleton Police Department and Outagamie County Sheriff's Department.

As a Grand Chute Town Supervisor, it is my duty to examine incoming police department proposals from a point of view of the best interest of the town, its taxpayers, citizen safety, and the effect the merger would have on the men and women of the Grand Chute Police Department.

From the beginning, I have felt the process to examine the department merger has been biased. The call for proposals did not begin to address the complexities and financial issues involved with a study of this size. A committee should have included town officials, police staff, citizens, from both the city of Appleton and Grand Chute, or Grand Chute and Outagamie County. The principal stakeholders driving this merger so far have only included Chief Walsh from city of Appleton Police Department, Appleton Mayor Tim Hanna, Grand Chute Interim Chief Lewis, Grand Chute Chairman Mike Marsden and Outagamie County Sheriff Brad Gehring. All have indicated they see benefits to the merger and are moving discussions along at breakneck speed, leaving the rest of the board and the public little time to digest information or thoroughly examine each proposal. As a result, the merger process from the beginning has been promoted in the newspaper and the media, without facts, creating distrust from the public, and Grand Chute police officers.

Because of these reservations, I have spent the last month contacting and researching departments that have merged, thought of merging but didn’t, and departments that contract out their services. I examined how they went about forming their mergers, the process involved from idea conception to implementation, and the success of their respective services, along with the challenges each department faced. This included phone interviews and/or reading reports of Bonduel Police Department, City of Marion, Louisville Metro Police Department, Brown County Sheriff’s Department, Indianapolis Metro Police Department, and Fox Valley Metro Police Department. Almost all merged departments had thought out, detailed processes for their merger path. These include:

• Started out with a private feasibility study.
• Had a joint advisory board (including town officials, police staff, and citizens) to review service options
• Had a clear vision and firm objectives in mind before the proposal went public.
• Had much public participation including forums before adopting the merger.
• Had clear and equitable funding formulas covering members obligations

With the insistence of careful planning, the Indianapolis Metro merger took three years, and Louisville Metro took five years of planning before the merger. There is also an understanding that mergers do not save money. They look to improve services. The ultimate question is do proposals submitted by APD and OCS provide enough improvement of services to justify such a merger, and at what cost.

Respectfully submitted,

Travis J. Thyssen

March 18th meeting agenda

The agenda for the Tuesday, March 18th Town Board meeting is available online. The Plan Commission and Sanitary District agendas are also posted.

TravisThyssen.com

Many blog readers know I am campaigning for the Outagamie County Supervisor Distric 32 position. District 32 includes Grand Chute Wards 1 & 3. I've found I like working for the town very much, and feel that wards 1 & 3 could use much better representation than they are receiving from the current County Supervisor. Residents that live in these wards will see me out and about the next couple of weeks. I'd appreciate your support, and pledge to work as hard at the county level as I'm working for the town.

I've set up a new web site for the County Supervisor election at www.travisthyssen.com. The web site will be dedicated to that race until after the election. I'm thinking of using it after as a place to park files that are of interest to residents of both communities, afterward. I'm still planning on keeping Grand Chute Town Talk blog active, but now will have a place to link to documents I'd like to put online.

Where do I vote?

Grand Chute residents vote in various polling locations throughout the town, and residents new to the area can be confused as where to vote. I came across a Voter Public Access web site where voters can fill in their address information and find out where to vote, who their local and state officials are. Be sure to put Grand Chute for city location.

Public hearings for police merger proposals

A public hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, March 25th, 7pm at the town hall. Residents will be able to ask questions regarding the police merger proposals.

Police Merger presentation meeting reminder

Just a reminder that police merger presentations to the board are scheduled for this evening at 7pm at the Grand Chute Town Hall. The meeting is open to the public. Public input forums will be held at a later date.

Old man winter takes up a lot of salt

There was a report by Public Works Director Tom Marquardt at the February 21, 2008 town board meeting that I think blog readers will find interesting. It was in regards to the decreasing salt supply the town and other areas of the state are facing due to the inclimate weather we are experiencing.
I am posting directly from the Feb. 21 town board minutes:

"Director Marquardt stated that the average snowfall for this area is about 46 inches per year, and we are over 70 inches this year. Our salt usage has gone up considerably. Budgeted salt for this year for purchase in 2008 is about 1500 tons. Currently, we have purchased 1200 tons. We have another 300 tons in Green Bay. Our total salt usage in 2007 was about 2000 tons. He added that the salt has been cut 50/50 with limestone chips to make our supply stretch and added that all communities are having problems with their salt supplies at this point.

Another tactic the Town is using to stretch the salt supply is by using an agricultural product made from sugar beets which pre-wets the salt and is a bio-degradable product unlike calcium chloride. This product is found to reduce the freezing point of the salt brine when placed on the road. Our salt purchase price for this year’s budget was $34.10/ton, currently if salt can be found to purchase, it is about $80/ton. With the rationing being done, we should have enough until the end of the season, but we are still looking for additional suppliers."

February 2008 meeting minutes

Town Board meeting minutes from February 5, 2008 and February 21, 2008 are available for download from the Grand Chute Web site.

Police merger proposals rescheduled March 11th

Police merger proposal presentations have been rescheduled for Tuesday, March 11, 2008 at 7pm. The meeting is open to the public and will be at the town hall. Appleton Police Chief Walsh will be first, with Outagamie County Sheriff's presentation at 8pm. Questions will be asked by Board Members. It is my understanding that the public will not be allowed to ask questions at this presentation. Public input forums will be scheduled at a later date.

March 4th, 2008 Board meeting agenda

Sorry for the late post, but the agenda for tonight's Town Board Meeting is available for download.

Office hours canceled

Office hours for Monday, March 3rd are canceled due to my work hours at the Sheriff's department. Normal hours will resume next week.