No news is good news in annual Fredonia police report

Village Marshal Mike Davel presented his annual police report for 2019 to the Fredonia Village Board recently, with little changed from 2018.

The Fredonia Police Department employs eight part-time officers who average 76 hours a week patrolling the village.

All eight officers are employed full-time with other police departments or retired after careers as police officers.

Davel, for instance, is a captain with the Port Washington Police Department.

Fredonia officers work various shifts, both days and nights. When a village police officer is not on duty, the Ozaukee County Sheriff’s Office is responsible for patrolling the village.

Officers completed 24 hours of training in 2019, including in firearms and pursuit driving.

The department has two squad cars — 2014 and 2017 models with 39,000 and 19,425 miles, respectively.

Plans call for purchasing a new squad car at the end of this year or in 2021, Davel said. 

Both vehicles are equipped with a mobile data terminal, or MDT, which allows officers to send and receive information from their squad, such as checking car registrations, driver’s licenses, warrants and other information from other jurisdictions.

“We do 75% of our work from the squad. It’s our office,” Davel said.

The department made 136 arrests in 2019, mostly for traffic violations. There were six disorderly conduct arrests and one for theft.

“We issue more warnings and equipment violations than citations,” Davel said.

The department issued 60 parking tickets in 2019, all of them for winter parking violations.

The Ozaukee County Sheriff’s Office responded to calls in Fredonia 100 times in 2019.

In all, there were 1,135 calls answered by village police,  including civil matters and assisting residents and other agencies.

The department also conducted two searches of the Northern Ozaukee School District campus last year without incident.