Shawano County courthouse re-opens Monday after COVID-19 closure

County Board meeting also canceled
By: 
Tim Ryan
Reporter

The Shawano County Courthouse has been closed until Oct. 5 due to an outbreak of COVID-19, but essential offices will keep operating, according to county officials.

This week’s Shawano County Board meeting, which was slated to take place at the County Park Pavilion and include a vote on a proposal to make the county a Second Amendment sanctuary, has also been canceled.

The decision to close the courthouse effective Monday was made late Friday, according to County Clerk Pam Schmidt.

County Administrative Coordinator Brent Miller said the county clerk and register of deeds will have someone available in those offices for people who call.

“For the court system, they’ll have to contact the clerk of court’s office, because the courts still have to do stuff,” he said.

Clerk of Court Ethan Schmidt said some of cases on the court docket are being rescheduled.

“What’s going on right now is Branch 2 courtroom is closed for the next two weeks and things will be rescheduled,” he said. “Branch 1 is going to try to handle some hearings by Zoom. Others are being rescheduled today.”

Schmidt said that any court hearings that do go forward will use the court system’s YouTube channel as its public access point at wicourts.gov, which has a link to YouTube proceedings.

In the meantime, people who had been summoned to appear in court will find themselves locked out of the courthouse. The county has posted notices on the doors of the courthouse and a list of contact numbers for county departments.

“What I’ve been doing is rescheduling with the skeleton crew that I have here,” Schmidt said. “We’re hoping to get out feet underneath us a little better going forward so people don’t make the wasted trip in to find out that their court case has been rescheduled.”

County officials are not revealing the number of county offices affected or number of employees that have tested positive for the coronavirus, citing Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy rules.

County Board Chairman Tom Kautza said in an interview last week, prior to the complete shutdown of the courthouse, that only two offices had been affected at that time.

He also said the exposure to COVID-19 didn’t necessarily occur at the courthouse.

“It may have been from some other event or other,” Kautza said. “That’s up to the health department to find out with their contact tracing.”

Public Health Director Vicki Dantoin said the courthouse situation is not unusual.

“It’s kind of the same as what’s been going on around the county, and the numbers are significantly higher than they had been previously,” she said. “It’s bound to occur in some businesses.”

Dantoin added it’s not always the workplace where the virus is contracted.

“What people do in their personal lives is their business, and there can be exposure that way,” she said. “It’s not always exposure at the workplace, but they do occur, and there have been plenty of business in the county that have had COVID as well.”

People having business to be conducted at the Shawano County Courthouse during the closure are being asked to contact departments in question at the numbers below:

Administration Finance: 715-524-4611

Child Support: 715-526-2190

Clerk of Courts: 715-526-9347

County Clerk: 715-526-9150

Corporation Counsel: 715-524-3181

District Attorney: 715-526-2166

Emergency Management: 715-526-6774

UW Extension: 715-526-6136

Health Department: 715-526-4808

Highway: 715-526-9182

Human Services: 715-526-4700

Land Conservation: 715-526-4820

Maintenance: 715-526-6685

Parks Department: 715-524-4986

Planning & Development: 715-526-6766

Register of Deeds: 715-524-2129

Register in Probate: 715-526-8631

Technology Services: 715-526-4615

Veterans Services: 715-526-9183

Victim Witness: 715-526-4608

WIC: 715-526-2822

Sheriff’s Office: 715-526-3111

ADRC - Wolf River Region Office: 855-492-2372