Village Board to allow marshal to work for town

The Town of Fredonia is renting help to enforce its codes on a trial basis from a neighbor.

The Fredonia Village Board last week approved allowing Village Marshal Eric Leet to work an estimated 12 hours for the year for $1,771, or nearly $150 per month.

“The Town of Fredonia does not have a code enforcement officer,” Village Administrator and Town Clerk Christophe Jenkins told the board.

“When there’s a municipal violation, they don’t have an entity or authority to enforce that ordinance, which also means they don’t have anybody to write the ticket and there’s no place for that ticket to go.”

The village pays $11,300 for Leet’s services, which includes clothing, workers’ compensation and liability insurance.

“One of the reasons why it’s such a cheap service for the town is because the marshal’s service is a cheap service for us, which we appreciate,” Jenkins said.

Leet would only be available on a call-by-call basis to the town.

“Understand it would not involve patrolling the township,” he told the board.

“This would basically be us serving as an access point for the township for their violations to run through a municipal court because such things can’t occur without a law enforcement agency the way the system is set up.”

Leet said he anticipates only responding to five or six calls per year.

“That’s something I can handle myself without impacting patrol activities,” he said.

Typical calls Leet would respond to would be for junk vehicles in front yards or for chicken ordinance violations, he said.

“Anything more serious than that,” he said, goes to the Ozaukee County Sheriff’s Office.

Trustee Don Dohrwardt doesn’t support the plan.

“The reason why we have a marshal’s department is the village wanted to have an organized enforcement potential in the village,” he said.

“I think this may possibly cut into those performances for the village in terms of availability for the marshal. I also worry about burnout because we won’t be getting the same coverage as we get now. We would have to probably have another marshal, another deputy, in order to make things even, plus the township, with the amount of coverage we expect.

Jenkins said he would react accordingly if Leet gets overwhelmed by town work.

“If it gets crazy and the demand is high, tell the town to look somewhere else. We don’t want it to be not cost effective for us as well,” he said.

Dohrwardt also cited “invisible” costs not in the agreement, and that, “There’s no way we can do this without costing the village taxpayers more than what they’re getting from their marshal’s department.”

Trustee Jessica Franck said she trusts Jenkins to monitor the expenses.

“We can give this a shot and if it’s not going to work out, we don’t have to renew it next year,” she said.

The agreement was approved, 6-1, with Dohrwardt voting no.