The Owen-Withee Police Committee held their quarterly meeting on Tuesday, June 2.
Officer Jake Haugstad talked about the Call Report. He gave them some year-to-date statistics, including the number of non-traffic stop incidents, which has been 346 so far this year. Last year they had 760 total. They had 34 traffic stops where at least one citation was issued and 138 where at least one warning was issued. They have also arrested 11 people for various incidents. K-9 Jimi has been deployed seventeen times with six of those yielding drugs/arrests. He also gave a breakdown of the 346 incidents by type and how the current month compared to the prior month, the year to date, the same month last year, and last year’s total by incident.
The garage rental agreement between the city and the police department was discussed. Committee member Pam Jaffke said that the Owen Finance Committee had met and looked at some numbers. City Hall is approximately 3,000 square feet, with the police side using 1,200. The garage is 1,000 square feet. The police will be using 800 of that. This leaves both the city and the police using about 2,000 square feet of space between the two buildings. The total utilities for last year were about $6,000 or $500 per month. Splitting that in half would leave the police department utilities at $250 per month. The current rent is $400 to help with the mortgage payment on the property. The $250 will be added to that beginning on January 1, 2026. Committee member Bob Wilczek said the utilities might even go down as the garage will now be insulated. Committee member Larry Klabon asked why they were installing a large garage door rather than two smaller ones, which is what the police, the committee, and Owen’s Finance Committee had wanted. DPW Chad Smith was reached by phone. He said the larger door was cheaper. He also said that if the police would ever leave there, public works could use the building and at least get a skidsteer through the door. The agreement is currently in the hands of the city attorney. There will be a clause included that the rental agreement will be revisited each year. It was also noted that something needs to be done with the fence.
Officer Haugstad updated the committee on the possible new RMS (records management system) program. He said when he started, the program they are currently using wasn’t working. He got it working, but it hasn’t been updated since around 2016. Currently, when a call comes in dispatch enters information in their system and the Owen-Withee PD has to re-enter the information in their system. It has to be checked line by line to make sure everything matches. Haugstad said the system is outdated.
The Sheriff’s Office contract for their system will be done soon and they reached out to Motorola and looked at what they could offer. Haugstad was impressed by the demonstration he and other officers were given. He said about 45 counties in the state already use this system. It is also affordable. Information in the system would go directly to the officers on the road. Haugstad said this would allow officers to be more proactive. He doesn’t have a cost yet, but is guesstimating around $3,000 per year. The current system is costing them $1,200 to $1,500 per year and if it goes down, there isn’t much that can be done to fix it.
Haugstad said if every department in the county goes to the new system, it will be one big data system. The soonest it will happen is sometime next year. The county is trying to get grant funding to help with the cost. The remaining cost would be split amongst the municipalities over five years. Their Axon body cams will work with the new system and their contract will be paid off about the same time the new system is ready to go, so that money can also be put toward the O-W police department’s cost.
Data will be hosted at the county level. One example Haugstad gave of how this would help is that if you run a stop sign in one municipality and get a warning and do it again half an hour later in Owen-Withee, he would know that and give you a ticket instead of a warning. He also said it will put officers on the road more as they won’t be stuck in the office writing reports.
Under the equipment update, Haugstad said K-9 Jimi is doing well. He said his tentative plans are to retire Jimi in early to mid-2028. In the meantime, he will be looking for grants and doing some fundraising for when they need a new dog. He turned in receipts for Jimi’s food and medication for several months. There was some squad maintenance done.