Sheriff pitching ordinance enforcement services to Brighton, Paris

Sheriff David Beth

Sheriff’ David Beth is proposing his deputies perform ordinance enforcement duties for Brighton and Paris, the two Western Kenosha County municipalities that currently don’t have staff directed to do such work or a municipal court.

Beth made his pitch to have deputies perform the service at the Paris Town Board meeting Tuesday night. He earlier had made a similar proposal to the Brighton Town Board.

“We just want to give you an opportunity to have an enforcement arm,” Beth told the Paris board.

There would be no charge for the service, Beth said, since he anticipates each of the towns only using perhaps a couple of hours  a month each for ordinance enforcement.

Enacting — and enforcing — town ordinances might be useful for tackling problems such as junk cars or animal complaints, Beth said.

While he would not anticipate having to charge for the use of deputies, Beth said the town would have to create a municipal court in order to enforce municipal ordinances. Brighton discussed perhaps partnering with Paddock Lake for municipal court. Wisconsin municipalities are able to combine municipal courts.

In fact, Paris town attorney John Knuteson serves as a judge in a combined municipal court, Knuteson said.

Currently enforcement of town ordinances is done through letters and filings in Circuit Court.

“One of the problems we’ve always had with this town is that enforcement is so expensive,” Knuteson said.

Board members were non-committal regarding Beth’s proposal.

“I appreciate the offer …,” town Chairman Virgil Gentz said.

But fire Chief Roland Iwen said he thought deputies handling ordinance enforcement would be a good idea based on his experiences enforcing burning violations.

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