The City of Neillsville has a New Police Chief
Tuesday, January 28th, 2020 -- 3:15 PM
-The City of Neillsville has a new police chief.I had an opportunity to sit down with Chief Jim Mankowski and he provided some details on his background.
“I’ve been in law enforcement since 1997. I’ve been in the public safety industry since 1990. In March of 1990, before I graduated from high school, I founded my own private security firm, JBM Patrol and Protection. I did that in addition to being a police officer. In December of 2018, I sold my business and I pursued law enforcement. When I ran my business, I had 500 employees and we operated in seven different states. I’ve done everything in the private sector from internal investigations to guarding cement to make sure that when cement is poured, people won’t tamper with it.”
“As far as law enforcement goes. I’ve had a number of trainings and I’ve been involved in all aspects of it since I started in 1997. And a lot of that doesn’t really matter. I think what makes a good police officer is how you interact with people and how you solve community problems. You could have more degrees than a thermometer, but if you can’t talk to people and you can’t give them customer service, you’re not effective.”
“It’s good to know what I do know in case of a crisis. But the reality is, everyday problem solving is what the police department is because, essentially, we only enforce the law a fraction of the time. The majority of the time, we’re community caretakers and we’re solving community problems and we need to be in partnership with the community and not considered law enforcement folks.”
“And that’s the direction I want to take our police department. Last week, I came up with a new mission statement and I came up with some core values and I met with all of my staff and laid out my expectations. And one of the expectations that I have is every single person, whether they’re a suspect, a victim, a business owner, somebody driving thorough, they’re customers. And we’re going to treat everybody like their customers with dignity, honor and respect.”
“A little bit about me, since I do have a business background, every single business that’s in this community is important, every single person that lives in this community is important and if anybody gets a take away from me it’s that it’s my job to be a liaison between the police and the community, it’s my job to make sure that police officers are held accountable, and it’s my job to protect the citizens of Neillsville. And that doesn’t mean that we’re going to give them problems in their life. But if we stop somebody with a suspended drivers license, let's find out why they’re suspended and what we can do to get them current, rather than just stacking tickets on somebody.”
He also explained what drew him to the Neillsville community.
“I just bought a house. I’m going to live in town. That’s really important to me. I like the small town atmosphere. I like the fact that, in Neillsville, being the Chief of Police there’s administrative work you can do, but you can actually get out and do police work and impact lives. What brought me here was a couple things, I was down at the Ridgely Police Department in Tennessee working and it was a small town like Neillsville, which I really loved. I was second in command down there.”
“What attracted me up here is that I have family up in Clark County and Neillsville is large enough that I can do everything here. I can buy groceries here. All the small town needs are here, but then again, it’s small enough to where you know your neighbor. It’s small enough that everybody knows your name. It’s small enough that the police department can actually solve problems as opposed to just taking police reports and assigning it to a detective for follow up.”
“So, that’s what attracted me to this area. I came up to this area a few times before I even accepted the job. Looked around and decided if it was going to be the right fit for me. And I think it’s important that they interviewed me to see what I’m about, but I also interviewed the community to see what they’re about as well.”
Chief Mankowski has some goals he’d like to accomplish.
“My goals are as follows: increase traffic safety; increase our presence in the community; improve customer service; increase our business patrols and safety checks; and increase the number of citizen accommodations for police by 15% annually every single year.”
“And I can explain those. Improve traffic safety. What I mean by that is it getting compliance? Not necessarily writing people tickets, but getting compliance so that people slow down and they obey the traffic laws, which will avoid crashes and keep us safe.”
“Increase our presence in the community. I want the police officers out and about interacting with citizens. I want them doing business checks. I want them out there talking with kids. One thing we are going to do is Coffee with a Cop. Once I get settled in here, I’m going to have a couple hours every month where people can just stop in and say hi and talk to me about whatever they want. We are going to, this summer, we see kids with bike helmets on, they’re going to get a $5 Subyway gift card.”
“Increase our business patrols and safety checks. What that means is the night shift officers, I want them out checking buildings. Making sure that everything is locked up. Because it’s a heck of a lot easier to solve an unlocked door than a burglary.”
“And increase the number of citizen accommodation for police by 15% annually. And what I mean by that is, we’re going to do good police work, but, in addition to doing good police work, we’re going to provide excellent customer service.”
Finally, he offered this message to the community.
“My message is as follows: call me anytime you want whether you have a compliment or a concern. And if you ever have a question about a police procedure or action that was taken, let's talk about it. And keep in mind that I’m brand new. I’m from the outside, but I have small town values.”
Make sure you take time to welcome Chief Mankowski to the community.
Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.