Carroll County Board of Supervisors are considering an ordinance that will establish a dog tethering law. During its Tuesday meeting at the Carroll County Courthouse in Carrollton, the board heard from Doll Stanley with In Defense of Animals Hope Animal Sanctuary in Grenada.
Stanley told supervisors Deputy Robert Anderson worked as an animal control officer for three years before joining the Carroll County Sheriff’s Department. She said Anderson handles many of the animal calls in the county.
“He’s very involved,” Stanley said.
She said a lot of the calls in the county are nuisance calls and there are questions of how the animals are tethered whether it’s on a leash or chain. She said right now, the county has nothing to enforce tethering.
“We don’t have anything to address it,” she said. “We need something with some teeth.”
Supervisors agreed the ordinance was good but had some concerns. Supervisors Jim Neill and Dill Tucker questioned if the ordinance would add more work to the department.
“They do a great job already, my concern is would they be able to get this done on top of what they already are asked to do,” Neill said.
“They already respond to the calls,” Stanley said. “This would give them a tool.”
Sheriff Clint Walker agreed with Stanley if the county had something to enforce the law, it would help his deputies when they respond to animal calls.
“It would help us out a lot,” Walker said. “The more teeth we have, the better.”
Stanley said the animal sanctuary can’t take every single animal and the ordinance would give deputies the ability to find the guardians of the animals and without it, they’re not able to do anything.
Fluker agreed the ordinance was a good one but his concern was the budget. “We have some budget restraints,” he said. “I’m very concerned about the budget.”
“I don’t think it’ll cost anything,” Stanley said.
“You don’t, but I know it will,” Fluker said.
Neill said the board should get attorney Kevin Horan a chance to look over the ordinance and then report back to the board on what he thinks.
Stanley said Washington State and California have similar ordinances but their ordinances are a lot stricter. Horan asked if there were other counties in Mississippi looking into the same ordinance.
“There are four other counties looking into it and a little municipality, the city of Bruce,” Stanley said.
Again, the supervisors all agreed it was a good ordinance but said they didn’t want it to cost them a lot of money on down the road.
Horan said that county could go a six month trial before making it perpetual and have an effective date and a terminate date but the board would have to go back and renew it.
Fluker told Stanley the board will revisit the matter on Sept. 29 and decide what they wanted to do from there.
The board also:
• Approved a $1,000 payment to the Carrollton Pilgrimage Trail
• Approved the supervisors and board clerk to travel to the Mississippi Association of Supervisors fall conference in Oct.
• Approved a $25,000 loan from Trustmark for Supervisor Jim Neill to lease purchase an Alamo Samurai side cutter in the amount of $59,000.
• Approved Gerald Peacock to repair a 590 John Deer Track Hoe for Supervisor Claude Fluker for $9,735. Fluker said the insurance would cover majority of the payment and there would be a $1,500 payment left.
• Approved a board order to establish funds for CR 430 in Beat 3.
• Approved payment to CATS in the amount of $27,297.50 for turnouts, boots, helmets and safety vest for county volunteer firemen.
