Members of the public have asked the assembly for the next step in borough wide animal control.
“I’m here for the sole purpose of to ask you to for a work group to address domestic animal problems here in the Kenai Peninsula Borough… I believe, as Tim, that we need to have some kind of a task force or a work program or we need something so we can start looking at some of these problems. People are dumping dogs out in Sterling left and right… I’m here, as others are here, to be a voice for the thousands of domestic animals that have no voice on the Kenai.”
While public testimony on the need for more comprehensive animal control measures outside city limits took a chunk of time in Tuesday night’s Borough Assembly meeting, no one solution or request was brought forward.
Kenai Peninsula residents voted down a proposition in October 2014 to implement a borough wide animal control program that was posed in two questions, both of which had to pass for the proposition to pass.
The first asked whether or not to create borough wide animal control, which garnered a 50.1% yes vote; The second asked whether to implement a .02 percent mill rate increase to cover the costs, which got a 63.6% no vote.
During Tuesday’s meeting, Assembly Member Brent Johnson, who had worked to get those propositions on the ballot, asked speakers for solutions.
Johnson: “So you would want a borough code, a leash law on borough code, it wouldn’t be enforced because we don’t have money to enforce it but you think that the troopers would be able to enforce that somehow?”
“I think that would give them a little more leeway in being able to handle situations.”
After the meeting Johnson said at that time no one had brought a specific plan forward but he is willing to work with the group if they come up with a solution that can be funded.