Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By RICHARD JENKINS
Hurley — The Iron County Board of Supervisors’ Finance Committee approved the purchase of the a videoconferencing system for the courtroom and jail Thursday.
It will allow the court to conduct necessary business with both defendants and witnesses remotely.
Iron County Judge Patrick Madden said the county is one of the last in the state to adopt the technology, which he referred to as “absolutely essential.
“I’m going to tell you this, there are 70 counties in the state of Wisconsin that have videoconferencing. There are two that don’t. We don’t need to be the last,” Madden said. “It is absolutely necessary for us to have videoconferencing in the courtroom. It is absolutely necessary for the sheriff to have videoconferencing in his facility.”
Madden told the committee the system used by the Human Services Department isn’t available to the court system because of the different requirements for the respective systems.
He argued the system is a matter of safety.
Madden said he once had to dismiss a case in Vilas County after the judge’s wife, who was a deputy, was killed in a car crash along with the juvenile defendant she was transporting to court.
“So I sat in the court in Eagle River and dismissed a case against a juvenile because he was dead,” Madden told the committee.
He added every facility in Wisconsin, including prisons and mental facilities, already has the technology to videoconference, as needed.
Madden said the system would reduce the amount of travel by the sheriff’s department deputies.
“Traveling an hour-and-a-half to Medford for a half-hour hearing and an hour-and-a-half back, we don’t need to do that,” Madden said. “The sheriff and the undersheriff don’t need to get up at 3 in the morning to get someone to a court hearing at 10 in the morning that takes 15 minutes and then turn them around and bring them back.”
Madden added he had never come to the county board to ask for anything in 30 years on the bench. “It isn’t optional, it’s essential,” he said. “It is just simply what we need to do to operate a system that is compatible with what we are doing today.”
Iron County Sheriff Tony Furyk said the reduction in travel would ultimately save the county money. He gave an example from Monday, when two deputies had to transport an inmate to Eau Claire. Furyk said he and undersheriff Donna Klawitter then made an arrest and had to transport the inmate to south of Eau Claire and return home in a heavy snowstorm. Later, other deputies had to transport an inmate to Ashland.
“In less than 30 hours, we had 930 miles on and 45 manpower hours,” Furyk said, adding it was possible the trips would have to be made again in the future and would be avoided with the videoconferencing system.
“There’s no loss to this, this thing will pay for itself,” Furyk said, explaining the system consisted of a camera, microphone and TV.
Brad Noren, the court administrator and information-technology person for the Gogebic County courthouse at Bessemer, also endorsed the idea to the committee.
Noren said the system would allow Iron and Gogebic counties to network together and prevent the need to transport defendants back and forth across the border.
Noren said the technology not only saves money, but also improves security.
“Inmates like road trips. These are like vacations for them,” Noren said. “And if you’ve been following any news on what’s going on in prisons and jails, a lot of inmates are manipulating the situation so they can escape and do other stupid things.”
The system would also allow witnesses to testify remotely to avoid travel costs.
Noren said he became involved in the process after hearing about the bids from a previous effort to purchase a system. Noren said he thought the bids sounded high and reached out to his contacts in Michigan to put together a more reasonable package.
In October, the finance committee initially discussed the issue. At the time, Furyk said the department needed to research the costs further, but estimates could range anywhere from $30,000 to $70,000, depending on the vendor and features included.
Furyk told the committee at the time his department spent $11,000 during the first quarter of the year in man-hours, mileage and other costs associated with transportation.
The cost of the system presented Thursday was $15,368 and will be split between the sheriff’s department, court system and Iron County District Attorney’s office.
Several committee members said they were much more comfortable with the purchase price Thursday than they were with the figures presented in October.
“This makes sense to me and it’s the most economical thing,” Jim Kichak, of Mercer, said, adding a basic calculation showed the sheriff’s department was spending considerably more in travel costs than the cost of the system.
The system can be expanded in the future. It could even add another unit to allow videoconferencing in the county board room.
