Tim Ryan, tryan@wolfrivermedia.com
Shawano County Board Chairman Jerry Erdmann said Thursday there will be no halt called to investigations of the Sheriff’s Department until they have run their course.
“When we feel we have investigated thoroughly, it will stop,” he said.
Erdmann responded in an interview with the Leader to comments made by Sheriff Randy Wright at a Public Safety Committee meeting Wednesday calling for an end to investigations of his department by a private attorney hired by the county’s Administrative Committee.
The investigations involve money that went missing from the jail in 2013 and an incident that took place at a Republican Party picnic between three detectives and Shawano police officer Adam Bieber, who is running against Wright in the Nov. 4 election.
Wright said his hope is that a County Board member would bring a resolution to the floor to dismiss the investigations, which he called a witch hunt timed to influence the election.
Corporation Counsel Tony Kordus said the board does have the authority to do that.
“The County Board is the ultimate arbiter and has the ultimate oversight regarding these matters,” he said.
Wright also maintains the Administrative Committee doesn’t have authority to investigate or take disciplinary action against his department’s employees.
However, according to Kordus, the county’s administrative manual gives the Administrative Committee or its designee authority to independently investigate alleged misconduct and take appropriate disciplinary action, if necessary, “in matters involving potential severe misconduct.”
Kordus also said that the attorney general has held that disciplinary action against a sheriff’s office employee is not solely within the sheriff’s power, and may be undertaken separately by a committee or board.
The Administrative Committee voted to hire labor Attorney Dan Borowski after a May 19 closed session discussion.
“Borowski was hired to look into the missing money and there were things he found that led him in other directions,” Erdmann said.
Borowski’s investigation apparently grew to include the events at the July 22 Republican Party picnic, though minutes from subsequent meetings do not show any vote taken to expand Borowski’s investigation.
There have been conflicting accounts of what happened at the picnic, with some witnesses saying the detectives attempted to ask follow-up questions of Bieber after his campaign speech and others who say their questions crossed the line into harassment.
“When it gets loud enough that Adam’s son gets scared and starts crying … the detectives had no business doing that,” Erdmann said.
Ultimately, Erdmann said, the point of the investigations is to bring accountability to the Sheriff’s Department.
He said no one has been held accountable for the missing jail money.
Wright said there was a thorough investigation of the missing money, which included polygraph tests administered to several staff, all of whom passed.
Wright also said the investigation was assisted by Brown County authorities and a retired Marinette County detective, and new money handling policies and procedures were put in place.
“If there was someone to hold responsible, I would have done it,” Wright said.
Wright said Erdmann’s claim that Wright doesn’t hold his staff accountable was a lie. He said there were at least 10 times since he took office in 2007 that employees lost their jobs over disciplinary actions.
“Some resigned, and some were walked out the door,” he said.
Wright also took issue with the investigation of the picnic incident, saying the Administrative Committee was bypassing a long-standing Sheriff’s Department policy for handling complaints against employees. That policy calls for a complainant to sign a complaint under oath, he said.
Bieber said in an interview Thursday that he had no interest in filing a formal complaint, but he said he was glad the Administrative Committee had chosen to investigate the incident.
“I am concerned about what happened there,” he said. “I’m glad they’re looking into it to see if there was anything inappropriate.”
Bieber said he has been questioned about the incident but wasn’t involved in the Administrative Committee’s decision to investigate.
Bieber said he doesn’t expect the investigations to hamper his relationship with staff if elected.
“Everybody should be able to be adults and put this aside,” he said. “I expect it will be put aside and I expect everyone to work and act professionally on and off duty.”