Scott Tibbs
blog post
December 24th, 2005
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At the County Commissioner's meeting on Thursday, the Commissioners voted to table the amendments to the animal control ordinance. There are several items of concern in the ordinance, one of which is a question over whether hunters will be required to have their dogs on leashes. Another concern was the requirement that dogs can only be tethered twelve hours a day. People who worked on the amendments said this was a compromise between 24 hour chaining and no chaining at all. Instead of splitting the difference, it would have been preferable to make the rule based on a serious study about what is best for the dogs and neighbors. The Commissioners made a wise decision to put the amendments on hold in order to work out some of these glitches. As I said during public comment, there is not so much of a crisis that the amendments cannot wait two or four weeks or even six months.
In another action, the Commissioners fired Charles Newmann from the county Planning Commission, replacing him with a different Democrat. There was some desire among property-rights advocates to appoint a Libertarian, which would meet the statutory requirement that the appointment not be a Republican. It seems that this was never seriously considered, and that is unfortunate. Herb Kilmer will also be replacing Iris Kiesling, who responded by bringing up alleged "conflicts of interest" Kilmer has. Kilmer explained at the conservative Friday Lunch Bunch that the specific examples Kiesling mentioned were not accurate, and that he will be asking for a public apology from Kiesling at the next meeting. Unlike some local Democrats, Kiesling seems reasonable and I expect that she will apologize when her error is brought to her attention.