The issue was beat to death, but ultimately the Shawano County Board approved, by a 17-10 vote, a plan to spend $42,100 to convert vacant courthouse basement space into offices for the Sheriff’s Department and storage of about 40 computers seized as evidence.
Some supervisors criticized the measure and recommended it be postponed for a month to clear up a number of issues. They included whether the Public Property Committee should have been a committee of record on the resolution, using funds designated for evidence storage on a project that includes only about 60 square feet for evidence, the cost estimate, and whether the plan created was hatched behind closed doors.
Supervisor Randy Young, chairman for the Public Property Committee, complained that his committee did not get to formally vote on the proposal. He cited County Board rules that state his committee has jurisdiction on vacant areas owned and operated by the county.
He also questioned why the Sheriff’s Department did not respond to a survey sent to county departments when the space was vacated late last year by the Health Department, which moved to the courthouse’s first floor.
Chief Deputy John Gutho, representing the Sheriff’s Department at the board meeting, said he was unaware of the survey.
Supervisor Robert Krause made the motion to postpone the matter until the July board meeting. He said he wanted to give supervisors the opportunity to quiz Sheriff’s Department officials about the best way to utilize the space for office and evidence needs.
Supervisor Deb Noffke was aghast at the idea of postponing a decision, voicing support for this proposal after opposing previous measures that recommended borrowing money for a new building at the Huber Work Release Center. She told Krause the issue had been held back long enough.
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing in this room. Public Property got left out? ‘Boohoo. We want it back and we can’t do anything,’” Noffke said. “We’ve got to do something. Maybe you’ve got all the time in the world to waste with this, but some of us do not.”
Supervisor Kathy Luebke was not as eager to move forward, as she questioned whether the $42,100 set aside for evidence storage should go for more offices for the Sheriff’s Department.
“I’m looking at this, and I’m seeing a lot of office space. How does office space take care of our evidence storage problem?” Luebke said. “We throw $50,000 for this. We threw $50,000 into another engineering plan. We approved a project two months ago and didn’t approve the financing. Let’s keep throwing money away.”
The measure does not solve the dilemma of finding adequate space for storing evidence, Gutho told the board. The issue, which has been kicked around for more than 10 years, is still being discussed.
The County Board approved a 7,200-square-foot building in April. However, a motion in May to borrow $678,000 to construct the building failed to get enough votes to pass.
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