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HANCOCK -- Hancock has a new police chief.
Tami Sleeman has accepted the city's offer to become chief, City Manager Mary Babcock said at Wednesday's City Council meeting.
Sleeman has been working as senior special agent with the Division of Criminal Investigation in the Wisconsin Department of Justice. A Houghton High School graduate, Sleeman has spent 32 years in law enforcement career that has included Michigan and Colorado.
Seeman replaces Chief Wayne Butler, who is retiring at the end of November.
Sleeman was also a finalist for the interim Houghton County sheriff position last year after the death of late Sheriff Brian McLean.
"I love my community," she said during an interview with the county board last year. "This is where I was born and raised. In all my experience and training I've had in multiple states and it's time that I could come back and share that with the community... as a leader."
During that interview, she listed the most concerning issues facing the areas as heroin and meth, the abuse of prescription pills, domestic abuse, alcoholism and the mental health system.
Also in the 2021 interview, she said if hired she would approach being hired by meeting with the department employees to find out what works and what doesn't.
She recalled her time on a task force studying overdoses, which included representatives from pharmacists, nurses, law enforcement, mental health workers and others.
"We're trying to find different ways to fix programs that aren't working," she said.
She had also been involved in planning monthly expenditures with her agency.