Manitowoc Police and Fire Commission Meeting – March 11, 2026
Manitowoc Police and Fire Commission Meeting – March 11, 2026
The City of Manitowoc Police and Fire Commission met in the lower-level meeting/training room of the Public Safety Building and via Zoom on March 11, 2026. The agenda and approved minutes list the meeting date as March 10, 2026, while the provided context identifies it as March 11, 2026; this summary uses March 11 in the title as instructed. The transcript also refers to the excused commissioner as Matthew Sower, whereas the minutes list Commissioner Sauer. Four commissioners were present (Vander Bloomen, Zigmunt, Schema, and Wellner), and Commissioner Sauer was excused. The commission unanimously approved routine reports, acted on a Captain of Patrol eligibility list, entered closed session for personnel matters, and established a Fire Rescue Chief eligibility list.
Consent Calendar
- Approved by a single 4-0 motion, with no items removed: January and February 2026 Police and Fire Commission minutes; January and February 2026 Police Department monthly reports; the 2025 Police Department Annual Report; January and February 2026 Fire Rescue Department monthly reports; and January and February 2026 Building Inspection monthly reports.
Public Comments & Testimony
- No members of the public spoke or submitted comment during the public comment period.
Discussion Items
- Police Chief reports: For January and February 2026, crashes were up slightly compared with the prior year in both months; traffic citations and warnings were also up, which the Chief attributed to increased staffing. The 2025 annual report was presented as a historical document and is available online.
- Fire Rescue Chief reports: January and February 2026 reports reflected the transition to NERIS, the national electronic reporting incident system, effective January 1. The new format grouped incidents into seven main fire incident types and no longer included monthly structure fire details or property loss/saved dollar values. The Chief expressed some dissatisfaction with the loss of that detail and said the data could still be obtained on request. EMS out-the-door times remained above the department's 90% goal. A commissioner asked that the month and year be added to page two to prevent pages from being mixed up.
- Building Inspection reports: No anomalies were reported for January and February; staff were busy with progress inspections for new coffee shops and commercial additions and renovations. The Fire Rescue Chief noted that Lead Building Supervisor Bill Nichols is retiring; his last day will be April 6, with a coffee reception on April 2 from 8 a.m. to noon.
- Police Captain of Patrol eligibility list (Item 26-0181): The Police Chief stated that he is retiring in a few weeks, Captain Jansen will become Assistant Police Chief, and a third-shift Captain position is being opened. The sole applicant, Lieutenant Robert Harps, was described by the Chief as a seasoned lieutenant with patrol and training experience. The commission approved the eligibility list for six months to allow his promotion.
Key Outcomes
- Approved the consent agenda 4-0, with Sauer excused.
- Approved the Police Department Captain of Patrol eligibility list, including Lt. Robert Harps, for six months, 4-0, with Sauer excused.
- Convened into closed session at 4:11 p.m. under Wis. Stat. § 19.85(1)(c) to consider police and fire employee performance updates and to interview an internal applicant for Fire Rescue Chief; reconvened in open session at 5:10 p.m.
- Placed on file the Police Department Employee Performance Update (26-0173), Fire Rescue Department Employee Performance Update (26-0174), and the internal applicant interview for Fire Rescue Chief (26-0175), each by 4-0 votes, with Sauer excused.
- Established the Fire Rescue Chief eligibility list (26-0176) with all internal candidates for three months, 4-0, with Sauer excused.
- Adjourned at 5:18 p.m. on a 4-0 vote.
Meeting Transcript
Call the meeting to order. Broke call. Matthew Sower is on vacation, so he has been previously excused. Otherwise, we're all present. Public comment. We have nobody here from the public. Are there any corrections to the minutes from our last meeting? Okay. We have February. Great. So in front of you, you should have both the January and the February Westwood reports. I don't see anything real, real whack. Crashes are up a little bit this year, both months. Obviously, weather is probably a factor there. But other than that, traffic citations and warnings are both up a little bit this year. We have more staffing this year, and I think that's probably a reflection of that. You have any questions? I'll be more than willing to answer any questions that you have. Any questions for the chief? You want to talk your yearly report? The annual report? Yeah. Well, we put together, obviously, it's pretty large reports. Do you guys have a hard copy at all or electronics? Okay. And nobody wanted to try and conserve resources. Okay. Yeah, that's not a bad idea. Pretty much so similar is the past few years. We put it together in the report. It is a lot of work, but I know the PFC here's asked to aid in the monthly doing that. We do. We feel like it's a good look back occasionally. Hey, when did this happen? What did that happen? What happened this year? But also like a historical look at this 50 years from now, somebody will read that and you know what we did back then and have some historical value. So the report pretty much all the information in there doesn't change necessarily from year to year. It just gets updated on what happened this year. So get any questions about the annual report, will the answer that. But it's also it's always available online to anybody that wants to look at it. Then we have Matitwak fire rescue monthly in January and February. So once again, you have the copies in front of you there. Um one thing that I will bring to your attention right away is that there were some changes to the layout of the document, basically because as of the first of the year here, um fire service changed from what used to be our national fire incident reporting system to one that is called uh nearest. So national electronic reporting incident system. So with that, however, it's um I haven't personally been able to use it at great uh uh use right now, but it's supposed to be a friendlier version and allow for better statistics to be taken out and give us better up-to-date information nationally of everything that's occurring in the fire service. But um with that being said, as you can see on page one there, um we had a kind of change the way we did our fire incident types, and what we laid them out there for you were the seven main ones that um they basically keep track of. Each one of those can be broken down smaller, but for the purposes of this report, they're kind of uh lumped together. Um so unfortunately look at structure fires. If we have any significant ones moving forward, um we'll be sure like to share those with you.
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