Tim Ryan, tryan@wolfrivermedia.com
Shawano County officials are again considering the possibility of a new evidence storage building for the sheriff’s department, three years after the topic became a contentious issue in the sheriff’s race.
“The County Board believes now is the time to move forward with this project and I agree with them,” Sheriff Adam Bieber said.
The department has recently rented semi-trailers to provide additional evidence storage space at the highway department, which is driving up monthly expenses, Bieber said.
“It is also not the most efficient or proper way to store evidence of serious crimes,” he said.
Evidence storage needs have been a recurring issue for the county.
The existing storage room inside the sheriff’s department was called “grossly inadequate” by a consultant in 2005.
Ron Lefebre of Virchow, Krause and Co. delivered a report to the County Board in October 2005 in which he raised alarms over potential liability issues for the county because criminal evidence could be compromised by the space limitations.
Several proposals for a separate storage building were shot down by the board over the years, most recently in 2013 when the County Board approved a $710,000 evidence storage facility that was to be constructed next to the Huber Work Release Center, but failed to get the supermajority needed to approve borrowing the money for the project.
The storage crunch was eased somewhat in 2014 when some evidence was moved to a secure location in the courthouse basement.
It continued to be an issue during the election that year, with Bieber and former sheriff Randy Wright differing on the extent of storage space still needed.
Bieber said at the time he was open to working with the County Board to find a solution, possibly in collaboration with Shawano police to meet their needs as well, but that Wright’s proposal was too expensive.
Bieber said Friday he would still like to see a joint facility shared by the sheriff’s office and Shawano and Stockbridge-Munsee police departments. He said discussions with those departments about the idea are in the early stages.
Meanwhile, evidence storage needs have continued to grow over the past few years.
“We have had large scale burglary investigations in which over 70 weapons have been seized along with other property,” Bieber said. “We have had a growing number of drug cases, sexual assaults, vehicle crashes, all of which require us to hold evidence until a judge releases it. In some cases we need to hold the evidence for the lifetime of the suspect charged and convicted.”
Bieber said county supervisors are taking up the issue again because “they feel we are wasting taxpayer money by renting and not building something that is appropriate and efficient. The makeup of this board has been very progressive but also looks for ways to save taxpayer money, and in this instance the taxpayers would save money long-term.”
He said the current conditions are not efficient and friendly to budgets or the taxpayer.
“I believe our citizens expect the County Board to properly equip our service agencies so the citizens will be better served,” he said. “The taxpayers and our courts should have complete trust in our handling and storage of important pieces of evidence so cases are not jeopardized.”
County Administrative Coordinator Brent Miller said local design consultant Scott Nordin is reviewing previous building proposals and will bring back recommendations for a trimmed-downed design that is hoped will be less expensive than what was proposed before.
“Until we can get an estimate of what it’s going to cost, we can’t make a motion to go forward with it,” he said. “But the public safety committee and the public property committee and the (capital improvement projects) committee are all in agreement to move forward with getting the plans re-engineered.”
Miller said the county is paying nearly $20,000 a year to rent additional evidence storage space at the highway department along with trailers that can be locked and secured at another $200 per month.