Board of Aldermen 07-09-2019 Page 2
Finally, another issue on the Agenda is the formation of the Animal Advisory Committee. This is
something that Ms. Logue, who may be speaking during public comment has worked very hard on.
The idea here is to form a Committee to advise the City about issues pertaining to animals and primary
among those would be the potential establishment of a downtown dog park to supplement the dog park
we have down in the southwest potentially on a different model. Rather than a closed membership and
a membership fee, this would be potentially run as a free dog park, open to anyone with certainly rules
that would be established by the Animal Dog Park Committee. There is a parcel of land that is being or
is a potential for this dog park which is owned y the Millyard Association. The owners seem very
favorably disposed; the owners one of which is the City, seem very favorably disposed to the dog park
on their otherwise unusable parcel. So | wanted to thank Ms. Logue and everyone who has contributed
to this idea because it could be a big amenity for the City in general as well as downtown residents.
So Madam President | think that is all that | have. The Fourth of July went great, hopefully as many as
possible saw the fireworks. | think people really enjoyed it as always, the weather was fantastic and so
| think everybody had a good time and the Parks Department did a wonderful job of making sure
Holman Stadium was ready for the crowd and everything was in good shape for everyone to enjoy the
Independence Day. Thank you, Madam President.
RESPONSE TO REMARKS OF THE MAYOR - None
RECOGNITION PERIOD — None
READING MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETINGS AND PUBLIC HEARINGS
There being no objection, President Wilshire declared the minutes of the Board of Aldermen
meetings of June 24, 2019, and June 25, 2019, accepted, placed on file, and the readings
suspended.
COMMUNICATIONS REQUIRING ONLY PROCEDURAL ACTIONS AND WRITTEN REPORTS
FROM LIAISONS — None
PERIOD FOR PUBLIC COMMENT RELATIVE TO ITEMS EXPECTED TO BE ACTED UPON THIS
EVENING
Amber Logue Amber Logue, 20 Lock Street, Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak
about the Animal Advisory Committee that we just heard about from the Mayor. So | wanted to focus more
on the reason why it is important to establish the Animal Advisory Committee versus the exciting part of the
discussion which would be the downtown dog park. And the reason being is that | think that inevitably
sometime in the future we would probably end up having some kind of a public dog park. But | do think that
one of the reasons that it hasn’t come up yet is who is going to govern it, who is going to oversee it, who is
going to help advise in some of the different situations that could come up.
After speaking with the Mayor about the idea of an Animal Advisory Committee that would not just see any
dog parks or development or oversight but also the relation of animal waste and how important it is for
citizen education around proper animal waste disposal, removal, pick up, etc. There is a huge lack of
education currently as to why it is important, how you properly dispose of it. So after speaking with
Department of Environmental Services, as well as our Engineers here for City Sewage, it has come to our
attention more so that we can do a lot more. But who is going to do it? So the Animal Advisory Committee
would help to put out that information, we don’t have to come up with it, it already exists. There is a 58-
page manual from DES that is a step by step instruction of how to. The work wouldn’t all fall on the Animal
Advisory Committee, the proper was to go about it is to get organized groups like Boys & Girls Club, Boy
Scouts, Girl Scouts, PAL of which would be happy to step up and help with some of those sewage
markings to advise on that you can’t dispose of animal waste. More so recently | was speaking with the
Animal Control Officer in Hudson.
