Manitowoc County’s Executive wants county board members to reconsider a proposal for body cameras and new Tasers for the Sheriff’s office.
In a letter to board members, Bob Ziegelbauer says he wants to save taxpayers $800,000 by having the board issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the tools through Axon, which would allow the office to obtain body cameras and new Tasers.
Currently, sheriff’s deputies in Manitowoc County do not have body cameras, as they have been seen as a hindrance in the past.
Sheriff Dan Hartwig has since said they are a tool that can help deputies.
However, Ziegelbauer says the plan the board of supervisors could vote on next month in the 2026 county budget is the “Cadillac Plus plan,” and the RFP was perhaps inadvertently ‘rigged’ to tie Tasers to bodycams and cameras.
Ziegelbauer goes on to question why the two tools have to be linked and why the county received only one bid on the RFP from Axon, a company that provides body cameras to law enforcement across the country.
Ziegelbauer finishes by telling the board, “Don’t be intimidated. We recommend the Sheriff apply for the latest grant. It’s not only for Axon products.”
County Board Chairman Tyler Martell calls the letter “outrageous” and goes on to say that Ziegelbauer’s “mismanagement created a multi-million-dollar budget problem.”
He finished saying that the County Executive needs to have the back of law enforcement. Manitowoc County’s Joint Finance and Public Safety Committee approved a $1.4 million proposal in July to add the RFP to the 2026 county budget.
The Public Safety Committee then approved adding an AI component back into the proposal last month.
