News from Your Sheriff-June 2022

 Hello, Clare County, and welcome to summer!

We currently have 171 people in our jail which consist of seven diverted felons, 97 local, two MDOC, and 65 federal. During the month of May our Central Dispatch documented 3,209 incidents in Clare County. Your deputies handled 2,085 of those calls, with other law enforcement handling 809 incidents. Fire and Rescue handled 127 with MMR Ambulance responding to 198 calls. There were 14 home invasion/breaking and entering complaints during the month of May. City of Clare had three, Hayes had four, and Frost, Greenwood, Lincoln, Redding, Surrey, Grant and Sheridan reporting one each.

We have planted our Jail Garden and things are growing good. We are able to use vegetables from the garden in the jail once they are ready. Clare County Senior Services also will use excess vegetables in their meals for our senior citizens. We have planted a garden now for over 15 years here right on the grounds of the county property. We have inmate trustees who help in planting, weeding and watering the garden on a daily basis. The area we plant the garden was in much need of fertilizer this year. We would like to thank Tim Packard, Packard Farm, for donating the manure for the garden this spring.

Our dive team conducted training this past Saturday morning at Little Long Lake in Harrison. Divers were instructed on the use of dive boards. These are individual boards where two to three divers are pulled behind a boat at one time. Ideally, there would be three divers with the middle diver basically scanning back and forth looking for the victim and able to watch over the outside divers. A diver can move left to right and up and down very easily using the board like a wing on an aircraft. We are able to cover a greater area of a lake with this type of searching technique. This is less physical on the diver, and less volume of air is used. Divers also did underwater navigational dives where they used their compasses to navigate to set points in the lake.

We now have five new Dodge patrol units that arrived on June 20. This will help with the high mileage patrol units we are currently driving. Our insurance carrier urges us not to use patrol cars that have exceeded 180,000 miles on them. We have several that are either at that point or close to it. We had to act fast to get the five we obtained because of the shortage of new patrol vehicles out there. With the help of our County Board of Commissioners allowing some of the ARPA funds to be used for the purchase, we were able to get them quickly. It takes anywhere from eight to 12 months now to get a new patrol car. Thanks to our Board of Commissioners for acting on this and allowing the purchase on such short notice.

I would like to welcome Lori Phelps as our new county administrator. Lori officially started in that capacity the first part of June. My undersheriff and I look forward to a great working relationship with her and her staff in the Administrator’s Office. Lori comes to us from years as the Director of Community Development/Senior Services. Again, welcome aboard, Lori!

Have a great and safe 4^th of July, Clare County!

Stay Safe, Stay Strong, GOD Bless America

Sheriff John S Wilson