By Rich Palzewic
Staff Writer

ALLOUEZ – At its Oct. 20 virtual meeting, the Allouez village board received an update from Brown County Sheriff Todd Delain on crime and activity in the area, mainly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s been an odd and interesting year so far with the pandemic,” said Delain, who became Brown County Sheriff in 2018. “Statistically speaking, we haven’t seen as many contacts in Brown County and Allouez as in years past with the public in certain areas. Traffic enforcement is a good example.”

Delain said there are good are reasons for that.

“We went through several months of people staying off the roads with Gov. Tony Evers’ Safer at Home order,” he said. “Even now, there are a high number of individuals working from home regularly. That’s cut down lots of traffic moving through Allouez. We want our officers to be smart with their contacts with the public, so they’ve been more selective in their enforcement actions.”

Under current orders, Delain said certain things like unregistered vehicles or invalid registrations are not enforceable.

“We’re in another 60-day window where those unable to take care of those things are not being ticketed,” he said. “When there’s a state of emergency in place, the state statute says those things can’t be enforced. We’ve given warnings instead. That’s an example of, is it even worth it to make the traffic stop (to warn someone) and risk unnecessary exposure to COVID-19?”

Delain said not all activity in the county has decreased, though.

“With people being home for long periods by themselves or not being able to have people check on them, we’ve seen more issues of suicide,” he said. “Also, unfortunately, in the City of Green Bay, there have been a high number of shootings – more than 60. (Green Bay Police) Chief (Andrew) Smith and I have a good relationship, and many times a week we discuss several topics. We’ve been fortunate the activity hasn’t spread out from the city into our primary patrol areas in other municipalities.”

In other crime areas, Delain said “nothing alarming is occurring.”

“If things come up, we’re quickly able to respond,” he said.

Delain also discussed the protesting/rioting that occurred in the county earlier this year.

“We spent many hours investigating some of the criminal damage,” he said. “I referred numerous charges to the District Attorney’s office for damage, including the damage done to an Allouez squad car. We’ve had several peaceful protests, but the problem was when traffic was blocked. One sprung up in Allouez several months ago. Peaceful protest is fine, but we have issues with traffic being blocked because of it. In most cases, it’s been about education to the participants.”

He said protests also occurred twice in Bellevue, once in Howard, several times in Green Bay and twice in Ashwaubenon.

The county is also working on some theft cases with storage units and trailers, Delain said.

“None of that is currently impacting Allouez, but we’ve seen a high number of snowmobile trailers – and trailers in general – being taken throughout Brown County,” he said. “I would encourage people to lock those up, especially if it’s a snowmobile trailer.”

In other news, the village received an application for the façade improvement program from Bartolazzi Holdings for the former community center at 2143 S. Webster Ave.

Bartolazzi Holdings was requesting an improvement grant to help with the historic restoration work at the building.
The estimated cost, which doesn’t include the architectural and engineering services for the project, is more than $24,000.

The requested assistance of $9,000 in grant funds was unanimously approved by the board.

Also, there will be no village board meeting Tuesday, Nov. 3, due to the election.