Council directs attorney to draft revisions to ordinances
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RONAN – The Ronan City Council directed city attorney Jessica Cole-Hodgkinson to draft clearer language for vicious animal and town beautification ordinances at its Aug. 26 regular meeting.
Last year, the council passed an ordinance that allows residents to make a formal complaint about lawns that are unclean or full of junk. The city can take steps to make the property owners clean the property after a complaint is made. When the ordinance was passed the police chief was designated to enforce the rule, but Mayor Kim Aipperspach said the chief might not have time to deal with the small violations.
“It’s been suggested to make, adopt language that … changes from ‘police chief’ to ‘police chief or public works director,’” Aipperspach said.
Other council members suggested making the language a bit more broad to include a non-specific designee.
Council member Roger Romero said regardless of who the designee is, enforcement should ultimately be the responsibility of the police department.
Aipperspach said the revisions would help during the initial phases of the complaint process.
“So the police chief doesn’t have to go and say ‘pick up your garbage,’” Aipperspach said.
Public works director Dan Miller asked if Cole-Hodgkinson could also clarify part of the ordinance that requires complaints be made in writing.
“People are reluctant (to say) I’d like to have my neighbor clean this up or mow his lawn,” Miller said. “I think with it in writing they are afraid we are going to send copies of that letter to the neighbor.”
City Clerk Kaylene Melton said in the past people have made several complaints about one property, but because no one was willing to sign a formal letter, the city could not enforce the ordinance.
“These people were afraid of retaliation,” Melton said.
The purpose of having the complaint in writing is to have some legal standing if the issue goes to court.
“As soon as you make this a misdemeanor, everything’s discovery and you’re going to need witnesses,” Cole-Hodgkinson said. “If they are not willing to sign a complaint are they going to show up to court when you try to do something about this?”
Aipperspach said he would support a provision to keep complaints anonymous until the matter went to court.
Councilman Cal Hardy said he would like to see more clarification throughout the ordinance about what classified something worthy of complaint and a better definition of the city’s formal process of handling the complaints.
Cole-Hodgkinson agreed to work on clarifying the ordinance.
The council also directed Cole-Hodgkinson to draft a vicious animal ordinance. At the previous council meeting Ronan resident April Godwin complained about two dogs that killed her cat during the summer. Although she said police officers responded to the incident, there was little they could do legally to punish the dog owners for what happened.
Cole-Hodgkinson warned the council that she loves dogs and intends to draft an ordinance with as much leniency for the animals as possible, while holding the owners accountable. Some ordinances the council researched call for euthanizing the animals if the owners cannot be located within a few days or without adequate substantiation of claims the dog’s vicious nature. Cole-Hodgkinson wants to avoid those situations.
The ordinance will focus on all animals, not just dogs.
“I don’t see any reason not to specify animal instead of dog,” Cole-Hodgkinson said. “That will cover the weird circumstances where there was no way we could see this coming – a vicious pot-bellied pig.”
The ordinance could face one major roadblock to solving the vicious animal problem. Because tribal government has no similar ordinance, animals belonging to tribal members would not be subject to the ordinance. Hardy said he would like to have a first reading of the rules and take them to tribal council to see if the two governments can work together to establish a similar code.
“I don’t want to say ‘This is our ordinance. Take it or leave it.’ I would like to work with them and get their say and see if they have their tweaks where they would be more on board,” Hardy said.
The council directed Cole-Hodgkinson to draft the animal ordinance before she drafts the beautification ordinance.In other business the council approved replacing chairs in the city court.
The next city council meeting will be Sept. 9 at 6 p.m.
