Ordinance aims at school misbehavior

New measure mirrors Suring municipal ordinances
By: 
Warren Bluhm
Editor-in-chief

Students who vape in school, play hooky or bully other students will now be in violation of Oconto County ordinances after a county board vote on March 23.

Sheriff Todd Skarban said the new county ordinance mirrors the Suring village ordinances so that school resource officer Deputy Jess Keplinger potentially can enforce them against students who do not live in the village limits.

Supervisor Gary Frank raised questions about the need for such an ordinance, with penalties like fines as high as $500 fine for truancy.

“This seems to be an unnecessary piece of legislation for us to dump into the Oconto County law enforcement system,” Frank said.

Skarban said he agreed with Frank in opposing “heavy-handed rules” when there are less onerous options to convince people to follow the law.

“We want to have alternatives to curb that behavior,” Skarban said. “But what do you do and what do you have in place when you have exhausted every single one of those efforts?”

The idea is to work with students as much as possible without having to resort to the force of law, he said.

“So you’re going to get your warnings, you’re going to get your several kicks at the cat before any of these things are applied,” Skarban said, “but we need to be in alignment, and that’s what Deputy Keplinger worked on with the corporation counsel to apply these things.”

The goal was to have an ordinance that is restrictive enough to have oversight, but lax enough to allow the deputy to use discretion, he said.

“We don’t want to write tickets anyway. We want to obtain voluntary compliance, but how do you do that?” Skarban said. “If you stop at a stop sign, I’m not going to reward you with a Snickers candy bar, but if you refuse to stop at the stop sign, it creates a dangerous environment, and you’re going to be cited for that offense.”

Frank said he trusts Skarban and Keplinger to apply the law fairly but is uneasy with adding more regulations.

“The problem always becomes who makes that judgment,” Frank said. “I trust everyone working here now, but someone else could come in, and then we have this draconian thing on our books that they can use.”

The county board passed the measure 26-2, with Supervisors Frank and Chris Augustine dissenting.