Grant received for new dive team trailer

A new dive team trailer will soon find its way to the Shawano County Sheriff’s Department. The department recently received a $6,000 Elevate Communities grant that will cover most of the costs of a new trailer. The grant was applied for by Lt. Jesse Sperberg, who spearheads the dive team. Also, the public safety committee voted June 4 to reallocate $2,800 from the crime prevention account to help cover the trailer’s costs. Dana Ritchie, office manager at the department, said the quotes the department collected are a bit more than the grant amount. The crime prevention account is from a discontinued program in which $10 from select forfeitures funded the program. The program has since ended and new funds no longer are directed to the account. However, when the program ended, there were outstanding fines that once collected still had to have the funds directed to the account, which is why there is still a balance in the account. Using the funds now would allow the account to be closed permanently, Ritchie said. The Shawano Area Fire Department has agreed to have one of its trucks pull the trailer when needed. The department will also contribute to some setup costs. The sheriff’s department has tried the past few years to budget money for a new trailer, but officials would eventually pull the request from the final budget. “We have an old ambulance that they have been using to respond with. This things has repairs,” Sheriff George Lenzner told the committee in 2024. “It’s over $3,000 to repair this, and I can see a future where we’re going to be putting more money into this than it’s worth.” The ambulance has been used the past nine years. “We’ve had good use out of it. The problem with the van is that we don’t use it a lot, but when we do, we need it to be reliable,” Sperberg said last year. “We have an old vehicle with lots of miles that sits there a lot. It’s not reliable.” Many departments are using trailers for special purposes like a dive team or emergency command center. The fire department uses one for its hazmat equipment.