Shawano police are planning a more aggressive stance on public nuisances that disrupt the aesthetic quality of life in the city, targeting everything from graffiti to unkempt lawns.
Chief Mark Kohl said the philosophy goes back to the “broken windows theory” that has been a staple of law enforcement for some 30 years.
“If there’s a neighborhood that’s in disrepair, if not addressed, that neighborhood will continue to be run-down,” Kohl said. “That also attracts the criminal element and also, the people living in that neighborhood get a sense that no one cares about them.”
The city has various ordinances covering such things as grass height, junked vehicles and the condition of abandoned buildings, but little has been done to enforce those ordinances unless someone complains.
“What the mayor and the Common Council have seen is that we’ve kind of dropped the ball there,” Kohl said. “It’s not just the police, not just the council, the (Department of Public Works) or the community, it’s everyone.”
Reporting problems
Kohl said what’s needed are partnerships with the community to address quality of life issues.
The department’s community service officers will also be on the lookout for ordinance violations.
“If they see something — for example, a property where the lawn is not kept up — they’re going to report it,” Kohl said.
The first step will be letting the property owners know and giving them time to address it. But if it’s not addressed, there are alternatives, such as having a vendor come in and cut the lawn and assessing the property owner the fee.
The same approach will apply to such things as yards strewn with junk, abandoned vehicles in driveways, dilapidated buildings and graffiti; things, Kohl said, that attract the criminal element.
“If we see neighborhoods that are dilapidated, let’s go in there and fix it up, so we drive that criminal element out of there, or at least the invitation,” he said.
“The mayor and the Common Council really have a strong desire to give the impression that we’re really inviting others to come visit, vacation and live here,” Kohl said. “So we want to make sure that the community is aesthetically pleasing; that those quality of life issues are addressed quickly, timely and correctly; that those lawn care issues, dilapidated buildings, those safety issues are going to be addressed.”
Landlord training
Kohl said solving those problems will take community partnerships.
To that end, one of the first steps the department is taking is a landlord training program. The free program will take place from 5-8 p.m. July 9 at City Hall.
“What we’ve been seeing is more complaints coming from neighbors on activities at rental apartments,” Kohl said. “Loud music, potential drug activity, nuisances like garbage and junk. We know what the ordinances are, but the landlords don’t.”
The training program will cover such things as “crime-free housing philosophies,” Kohl said, as well as preparing rental agreements and spotting warning signs of drug activity.
“Our philosophy is that we want to create partnerships with those landlords and have them be our advocates for a safer community,” Kohl said. “We want to decrease the amount of repeat calls we get to their properties of unruly renters or concerns of safety or health issues.”
Kohl said landlords would be cautioned, however, against crossing the line into invasion of their tenants’ privacy.
“We’re not asking them to be the eyes and ears of the police,” he said. “We don’t want them, as a result of them having access or more information about their tenants, to report that to us. That’s not our interest.”
Kohl said the department’s interest is in giving landlords somewhere to turn when they see something that should be addressed.
“They see that the children at this residence don’t seem to be clothed all the time; they’re always running around in all different kinds of inclement weather with no shoes. Who can they call?” Kohl said. “They see that the property is starting to deteriorate. What alternatives do they have?”
Kohl said landlords should not take any investigative action that police might take.
“If we hear that they’re doing something like that, we’ll tell them, ‘No, you’re not the right hand of the law enforcement agency,’” Kohl said. “Just be a good witness and report anything you think is necessary to report.”
Kohl said the landlord training program isn’t intended to give the impression that people who rent are necessarily a problem.
“There’s very good renters out there,” he said. “There’s people I know of, people that retire and would rather rent because they don’t have to worry about the upkeep of their property.”
Kohl said renters don’t typically have the responsibility for the upkeep of the property.
“The perception is that the renters are at fault. That’s why we’re inviting the landlords here,” Kohl said, “to let them know their responsibility of keeping the property up, keeping the lawns cut, falls on the landlord.”
Kohl said if there’s a rental agreement that makes it the tenant’s responsibility, that’s an issue between them.
Kohl also said it’s not just rental properties where aesthetic issues and nuisance violations take place. The same occurs, he said, even with long-term homeowners.
Proactive steps
The landlord training program, along with plans for a heightened neighborhood watch program and a citizen police academy that will provide insight into how the department works, are all proactive steps aimed at helping drive crime out of the city, Kohl said.
The goal, he said, is to have Shawano residents feel that someone cares about them and their neighborhoods.
“From their neighbor to the police to other public and private entities, it will give them that buy-in that they’re part of the community, not apart from it,” Kohl said.