A 12-day unpaid suspension handed to Door County Sheriff candidate Curt Vandertie in 2022 has become the flashpoint of a three-way race that will be decided November 3, with personnel files, an internal union revolt, and a retired Denver detective's own messy record all landing in public view. Vandertie, the Republican nominee and a current Door County deputy, says the discipline against him was payback for announcing his campaign. The county's top lawyer says that is not what happened.
According to NBC26, personnel records obtained through an open records request show Vandertie was suspended 12 days without pay in 2022 after violating nine disciplinary rules, including a finding that he yelled at a female deputy. He was also removed from his supervisor and field training responsibilities. Door County Pulse reported that the March 2022 investigation concluded his conduct toward the deputy created an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment that adversely affected the workplace, a finding detailed by Door County Pulse.
Vandertie has suggested, per a statement on his campaign website, that the investigation began shortly after he notified Sheriff Tammy Sternard he planned to run against her. He declined an interview request for the NBC26 story. But Door County Corporation Counsel Sean Donohue disputes that timeline directly. Donohue said the 2022 investigation was not initiated as an inquiry into Vandertie at all — it grew out of interviews conducted during a separate investigation involving another deputy sheriff, and he said he thoroughly reviewed the case timeline and documentation before reaching that conclusion, the station's report noted.
A Sheriff Who Won't Discuss the Case Directly
Sternard, the Democratic incumbent running for another term, also declined an interview and instead referred all questions about Vandertie to Donohue's office. The internal probe that led to Vandertie's suspension was not the only disciplinary wrinkle to surface from his personnel file: records show he spent 542 minutes on personal business while on the clock, including time at his children's sporting events and at the Door County KOA Holiday campground in Brussels, where he also serves as chief of the Brussels-Union-Gardner Fire Department.
Vandertie advanced to the general election after beating Professional Standards Captain Carl Waterstreet in the August 11 Republican primary by a vote of 3,114 to 1,951, per Door County Pulse. Waterstreet, notably, was the professional standards captain who participated in the 2022 internal investigation into his primary opponent, a detail that underscores how tangled the department's internal politics have become heading into November.
Independent Candidate Calls Out Self-Victimization
Independent candidate Randy Wagner, a retired Denver police detective, did not hold back when asked about Vandertie's retaliation claim. Wagner said he was fairly disgusted by Vandertie's public comments, arguing that Vandertie was not admitting guilt and instead used the incident with the female deputy to victimize himself, according to the NBC26 report.
Wagner has tried to get ahead of scrutiny of his own 25-year law enforcement career by voluntarily releasing his record, which includes 30 internal complaints filed during his 21 years with the Denver Police Department between 2001 and 2017. The majority of those complaints were dismissed without findings, while five resulted in reprimands or suspensions, Door County Knock reported in its coverage of the candidates' disciplinary histories. Separately, NBC26 reported Wagner missed court appearances in 2003 and 2005 and was suspended four days in 2018 for using inappropriate force.
Union Revolt Adds Pressure on the Incumbent
Sternard, who has spent 33 years in Door County law enforcement working her way up from reserve deputy to jail sergeant, jail lieutenant and eventually sheriff in 2019, is also contending with an internal revolt inside her own department. The Door County Deputy Sheriffs' Association, representing 55 members across patrol and jail divisions, issued a formal vote of no confidence against her on June 1, citing concerns over communication, staffing, and command presence at critical incidents.
Sternard has called that vote baseless, saying there are no substantiated complaints or discipline in her human resources file. The Door County Administrative Committee convened on June 16 to address the union's resolution, with county leadership offering mediation to try to resolve the friction, as the Peninsula Pulse detailed in its account of the county's response to the no-confidence vote.
Why So Many Records Became Public
None of this would be visible to voters at all in many other states. Wisconsin law requires law enforcement disciplinary records to be made available to the public unless they are part of an active, ongoing investigation, a standard that Door County Knock notes enabled local media to access candidate personnel files even as nearly half of U.S. states keep such records confidential or strictly limited. That open-records standard fueled nine separate public records requests local authorities received over the summer seeking candidates' law enforcement disciplinary histories, according to Door County Knock's reporting — and partial copies of Vandertie's file were anonymously mailed to news outlets before the primary.
Wisconsin is also one of a minority of states where sheriffs are elected in partisan races, though candidates can bypass that structure by filing a Statement of Principle to run as an independent, which is how Wagner got onto the ballot without facing the August primary. NBC26 has said it will continue covering the race ahead of the general election on November 3, as voters weigh dueling personnel files against competing claims of political motive.
