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Supervisor urges adopting Village dog nuisance law to add enforcement
Summary
Board members discussed adopting the Village's existing dog nuisance ordinance rather than drafting a new version, citing concerns about enforcement gaps in the town's 2010 law and attorney costs; staff was asked to retrieve both ordinances for comparison.
A Supervisor on the board urged adopting the Village of Alexandria's dog nuisance law rather than creating a new town ordinance, questioning whether the town receives enough barking complaints to justify new attorney costs.
"Why can't we just adopt the same one that the village has already and just move forward with it?" the Supervisor (Speaker 1) asked, adding that during six years on the town board they had not seen many complaints. Board members asked staff to obtain a copy of the Village dog nuisance law and to pull the town's 2010 dog ordinance for review.
A board member (Speaker 3) noted why a revised ordinance had been proposed: the 2010 ordinance lacked an enforcement mechanism. "The whole thing with the 2010 was there's no method of enforcement," Speaker 3 said, and described instances when Jefferson County would intervene for loose or dangerous dogs but would not enforce barking complaints without local enabling language. The board agreed to compare the Village ordinance and the town's existing code to determine next steps.
