For the first time during the campaign the candidates for Fond du lac County sheriff squared off in a face to face debate. Fond du Lac police detective Bill Ledger is running against incumbent sheriff Mick Fink in the August 12th Republican primary. The two faced off Tuesday on AM 1170 WFDL’s Between the Lines program and got into a heated back and forth when Ledger said he was running because of what he described as a rift between the Sheriff’s Office and other law enforcement agencies. “It seems to be this atmosphere, this attitude from the Sheriff’s Office against the Police Department, and its not just the city police department, there’s Campbellsport, Brandon-Fairwater, Ripon, town of Ripon, this we don’t need your help attitude,” Ledger said. But when asked by Fink if he had talked to any police chiefs in the county about that Ledger admitted he had not. Fink says the only rift is Ledger’s anger that Fink supported Eric Toney in the DA’s race two years ago. “The rift, and I talked with Bill Lamb (FDL police chief) about that, is there are some detectives in the city police department that were angry, you included Bill, when I supported Eric Toney for the District Attorney race,” Fink said. “I thought that was the best choice at the time, I made no bones about it.” After the election Ledger posted disparaging comments on his FaceBook page directed at Fink, the newly elected Toney and a private citizen. Fink and Ledger got into it when Ledger said there needs to be better cooperation between police and sheriff. “If I’m elected what I would like to see is more of an open-door policy from administrators. The sheriff being able have an open door meeting with the police chief, and I’d like to see more cooperation between specialty units, me being a SWAT team guy for the last ten years, I’d like to see the SWAT teams get together and train,” Ledger said. “I have talked to every chief in the county,” Fink said. “I get incandescently angry with you when you speak of other chiefs when you haven’t talked with them, when you speak about what my deputies say or aren’t saying and you have my Deputy Wives Association up in arms because you seem to be speaking for them. Let them speak for themselves,” Fink said. Ledger said other sheriff’s employees and law enforcement are afraid of coming forward. Fink says that’s not true. “I think you are looking at this as being us versus you or you versus us,” Fink added.
