Waupaca resident urges council to explore installing 'safe-haven' baby box; staff to research

Tara, a resident who identified herself during the council meeting, asked the Waupaca Common Council on Tuesday to allow staff to explore installing a ‘safe-haven’ baby box in the city to provide a confidential place for parents to surrender newborns under Wisconsin’s safe-haven law. The council accepted the presentation as information and directed staff to research the program and return it as an action item in early January.

The presenter said Wisconsin’s safe-haven statute was enacted in December 2023 and that a pending assembly bill referenced in the presentation, AB 237, would extend a related parental/notice period to 30 days if enacted. She described existing safe-haven baby boxes that are already installed in other Wisconsin communities and said the boxes are designed so a parent can place an infant inside, trigger a silent alarm tied to 911, and the infant is retrieved by trained EMTs, paramedics or hospital staff. "By having this the safe haven baby box, we can raise awareness for this," Tara told the council.

Tara gave the council operational and budgetary information provided by the vendor. She said the vendor requires a contract review before fundraising can begin, that donations must be handled through the vendor’s nonprofit process (donations are not to be solicited directly to a local account), and that installation includes testing and training requirements (the vendor requires seven consecutive successful test days before the box ‘goes live’). She cited an estimated production and delivery lead time of about four weeks from order to delivery and identified an initial vendor fee the presentation listed as about $15,000 and an annual monitoring/service fee of about $500. Other installation and permit-related costs were described in the presentation; transcript audio contained garbled numeric ranges for some installation and materials estimates and the presenter said she was awaiting clarification on whether excess fundraising could be applied to ongoing annual fees.

Council members asked whether the presenter had consulted local public safety and county partners. Tara said she had spoken with Chief Kroeger and planned to contact county officials. Mayor Smith thanked Tara for coming forward and said staff would research the program and bring the item back for a formal decision at the council’s first meeting in January.

The presentation did not include a formal vote; council consensus was limited to directing staff to investigate and place the item on a future agenda. The record contains the presenter’s cost estimates and vendor process as stated in her presentation; the city has not yet approved any contract or committed funds.