Monday Morning
We had 16 members at Monday’s meeting at the Holiday Inn along with our guest speaker, Mark Strand from the FDL County Sheriff’s Department. “Happy Bucks” were offered by Vickie Goldapske for her weekend visit to her first and probably last visit to “Cranberry Fest” in Warren and by Gary Miller for his weekend attendance at his high school class reunion. Gary Miller circulated a picture from the Action Advertiser showing our donation of iPad Minis as part of the District Governor’s Project. Dave Twohig was the 50/50 Raffle winner and he drew the Five of Clubs, a $5winner. Nicely done Dave. That leaves 49 cards with eight pay cards for next week’s drawing. The new pot next Monday will be at least $34.

Mark Strand, FdL County Sheriff
Mark Strand, Chief Deputy/Undersheriff, joined us to talk about what’s new at the FDL County Sheriff Department. Mark is a 32 year veteran of the Sheriff’s Department and he’s worked in just about all of the various areas of the department. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice and a master’s degree in Organization Leadership from Marian University. Mark was appointed to Chief Deputy / Undersheriff in 2006 and has held that post for the past seven years. Mark talked about the various functions within the Sheriff’s Department, such as the Dive Team (including ice dive capabilities), Jail, SWAT Team, MEG Unit participation, Detective Bureau and Accident Reconstruction Specialists. He noted that the Sheriff’s Department covers 725 square miles in Fond du Lac County and provides to police coverage to a number of smaller communities in FDL County. Mark also talked about the department’s auto fleet and how often they replace the cars in the fleet and what kind of vehicles they use based on their equipment and technology needs. The budget for the FDL County Sheriff’s Department is approximately $16.5M with half of the amount going towards the operation of the County Jail. Our County Jail is one of five medically certified jails of the 71 county jails in the state of Wisconsin. Therefore, we see a number of inmates from other counties that need medical care not available in their respective counties.