Policy spells out who’s allowed on property

SHAWANO — The Shawano County Public Property Committee voted Tuesday to forward to the County Board an amendment to its policy that cements who is allowed to remove personal property from places that the county seizes in rem (by legal action) for failure to pay taxes.

The proposed language would allow only employees with the county’s maintenance department to remove or discard any property. The maintenance department would keep an inventory of all the items on the property, and no one else would be allowed to remove property for any reason, according to the amendment.

The change in the policy follows an April 2018 incident in which Supervisor William Switalla removed a grill from a Wittenberg property acquired by the county via tax foreclosure. He returned the grill but was charged with felony burglary. That charge was dismissed in August of this year, and a misdemeanor count of theft will also be removed from legal records once Switalla completes 40 hours of community service between now and February.

At the time, there was no policy regarding who was permitted or forbidden to remove or discard items from an acquired property. Switalla’s attorney, Paul Payant, questioned in court documents whether County Treasurer Deb Wallace, who signed the non-consent form stating Switalla had no authority to take the grill, was able to claim ownership of the property.

Supervisor Mike McClelland said the recommended language was not how he wanted it, which was to not allow anyone to remove any personal items from foreclosed properties. McClelland said it was on the advice of legal counsel that someone with the county be responsible for the properties.

“I was concerned someone might challenge (the foreclosure) in court,” he said.

Supervisor Deb Noffke said that most living owners losing their property to tax foreclosure would likely remove any personal items of value before the matter is finalized in court.

Steve Dreher, the county’s maintenance director, added that there have been some properties that have already been ransacked by the time the courts give their rulings and his department goes to inspect them.

“We’ll go there, and the fresh snow has already been disturbed, and we go out there right after the rulings come down,” Dreher said, pointing out that the 2019 tax foreclosures were ruled on the same day the committee met, and his employees would be getting to the properties in the next few days.

Supervisor Jerry Erdmann agreed with Dreher.

“Any neighbor who knows what’s going on will already be in there before you ever get a chance to inspect it,” he said.

Supervisor Randy Young said he had no problem with the maintenance department being responsible for handling the personal items on a property and felt the amended policy should move forward.

“It’s clear who can and cannot do this,” Young said. “No one can volunteer to come out and clean up a property; the highway department can’t say, ‘We’ll go out there and take a look.’ It’s the maintenance department only handling the inventory.”

Noffke offered additional language that the inventory lists would come to the public property committee for approval, and it passed.