Also addresses first amendment auditors and animal control
By Barb Pert Templeton
A Jan. 20 meeting of the Algonac City Council included a presentation by St. Clair County Sheriff Mat King that shared the law enforcement services provided to the city in 2025. King also responded to questions from the council about first amendment auditors and animals in local communities.
The St. Clair County Sheriff provides police protection for Algonac residents and enforces all state laws and city criminal, civil and traffic ordinances within the city of Algonac. The current agreement between the city and the sheriff’s department is a three-year contract that began on Oct. 1, 2024 and will expire on Sept. 30, 2027.
Sheriff Mat King gave a roughly 15-minute presentation to the council explaining the activities his department conducted last year on behalf of the city. He began by sharing a bunch of statistics related to the calls and services provided in Algonac.
For area checks the department logged nearly 3,500 which was deputies checking on properties, schools, places of business and residences when people are out of town. Medical assist calls were 321 and citizen assists were 326.
The follow-up log recorded 407 calls which shows that “the deputies are taking all their calls and taking them seriously,” King said.
The St. Clair County Sheriff provides police protection for the City of Algonac.
He said deputies make sure they exhaust all the leads they have, talking to both sides in an incident and not just doing the paperwork and walking away.
There were 714 traffic stops in 2025 but that number was down from the previous year when there were 1,266 and King said he “didn’t have a great answer as to why the numbers were down.”
As for service calls for 2025, King said the department recorded 6,741 and in 2024 there were 6,300 so that number amounts to about 400 more calls for service.
King then opened the floor offering to respond to questions from the council.
Mayor Pro Tem Dawn Davey said she noticed that this year’s report was broken down quite a bit compared to past paperwork presented. King agreed and said they were happy to be able to give a more complex and better picture of what the department’s doing.
“We saw the potential to show more in-depth what we do from day to day and month to month,” King said. “Before it would have all these categories bunched in and it might be a motorist or a neighbor complaint but now you see it really broken down.”
Davey said yes, she was repeating herself again but she really wanted to compliment King’s officers on the training they’ve had as their working with emotionally and developmentally impaired people has been very good.
“Those situations are difficult and you guys always do your best,” Davey said.
“I appreciate that,” King said, noting that he’s been an officer for 30-years now and he’s seen so many changes over the years. “Not only in the needs of the community but how we respond.”
Sheriff Mat King.
King added that when he went to the academy in Detroit that subject wouldn’t have come up but it’s part of the basic training of officers today.
Mayor Rocky Gillis thanked King for everything he and his department do for the city. In particular he said he loves the St. Clair County Sheriff’s app for his phone.
“If there’s an incident you get an alert and if something goes on you get an alert on your phone that says please avoid this area, it’s pretty cool,” Gillis said, adding that you can contact the department and apply for jobs on the app too.
First amendment auditors
When King completed his activities presentation Councilman Michael Bembas said a few weeks ago there was an incident in the area with first amendment auditors and he wondered if there’s a class or speech that officers could share with businesses in the community that would be “best ways to deal with those situations.”
“I certainly think we could team up with the prosecutor’s office so that the law is properly explained,” King said. “Now these first amendment auditors – and I don’t want to start speaking to an event that I wasn’t at – but in general for private businesses you have the right to serve or not serve anybody, you can tell anybody to leave.”
If the auditors think it’s discrimination they can sue the business owner later, King said.
“If it’s a private business you don’t have to let anybody in, you can tell them ‘Hey, I don’t want you here, it’s my business,” King said. “Public offices are a different story and we could certainly convey some information so public offices in all the communities have access to the information.”
King said it could be as simple as sending out an email with slides to blanket the community so they know what to do and not to do when things happen.
Bembas asked City Clerk Artie Bryson if he would follow up and look into the issue so citizens don’t do anything improper and also so they know the city and the sheriff have their back.
New policy for animals
Councilman Ed Carter said he wanted to make a statement about deputies and animal control but he also wanted King to respond.
“I feel the deputies of the whole county area are in a no-win situation with animal control,” Carter said. “I know you’ve worked very hard to make sure the right tools are in the cars now which weren’t before but unfortunately it’s not your forte, to be dealing with animals.”
He said he wants something to be done county wide to take that responsibility off the sheriff’s department because when bad things happen, they get the blame.
“You’re not trained for that,” Carter said.
King replied that anytime there’s an incident that’s outside the ordinary the department does an overview looking at policy and procedure, training and equipment.
“We addressed all three and we made sure every car has the proper equipment in it to handle animals and we changed the policy that we are not picking up stray dogs or meeting people at animal control, that’s animal controls job,” King said.
The only animal reports the sheriff’s department will continue to handle are if there’s a dog bite or if it’s a dangerous dog and somebody is in danger. For example, the department recently responded to a call that someone couldn’t leave their home because vicious dogs were in their yard.
“We had the proper equipment, retrieved those dogs and took them to animal control,” King said. “As far as finding a stray dog, responding to stray dogs if they’re not a danger to people, we’re not doing that anymore that’s animal controls job.”
The deputies are always training on animal encounters and mental help and all those subjects and have to take that mandatory training. The training isn’t presented by police officers but rather animal experts, King added.
“It’s my job to make sure I put my deputies in the best position I can and I should have changed that policy a while ago so that parts on me but we have addressed it,” he said.
