Champlain resident urges Clinton County Legislature to revive tethering law, seeks supervised-tethering public hearing

Jennifer Jewett of Champlain, New York, told the Clinton County Legislature on Jan. 22 that she will continue pursuing a local law requiring supervised tethering of dogs after a November vote denied the public a hearing on an earlier draft.

Jewett said the county voted the proposal down when two legislators were absent and that some members who voted against it had not read the draft. “Back in November, after nine months of work, we were denied a public hearing for the law that we spent two months getting past the county attorney,” she said. “This was the first time in at least a decade that the Clinton County legislature had denied the public a public hearing on a local law.”

Jewett described both humane and public-safety rationales for the change, saying tethered dogs can present a community hazard as well as an animal-welfare concern. She said she has seen examples of supervised-tethering ordinances in other states and that those laws typically require a person to be present when a dog is tethered rather than setting an hourly cap. “These laws don’t set hourly limits, like, no more than four hours at a time. These laws simply state that if a dog is tethered outside, it must be supervised. It’s enforceable. It works,” she said.

In her remarks Jewett offered local examples to underscore safety concerns: she said about 25 beagles remain chained in “Allenberg” and recounted an incident in which a mayor’s finger was broken when a chained dog’s leash wrapped around the mayor’s hand. She also said the draft ordinance her group prepared had cleared review by the county attorney before the legislature declined to hold a hearing.

Jewett said the denial of a hearing left advocates discouraged but determined. “The whole scenario was completely disrespectful to our team,” she said, adding that she traveled out of state and observed tethering rules elsewhere that informed her group’s approach. She told the legislature she plans to return with a version that includes supervised tethering.

Her remarks came during the meeting’s public-comment period and were not followed by formal legislative debate or a committee referral during the Jan. 22 session. No legislator made a formal response to the substance of her comments during that segment of the meeting.

The meeting proceeded to committee reports and a slate of routine resolutions. No timeline for further consideration of the tethering proposal was announced at the meeting.