By: Shar Dimick
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
City Council passed ordinance 2015-4, which amends Section 505.01 of the Codified Ordinances that pertains to dangerous and vicious dog at the April 19 Wauseon City Council meeting.
The new ordinance, which goes into May 20, 2015, eliminates the breed-specific language from the law. In addition, it defines an ‘annoyance’ dog as one that has been issued two or more citations for being off the premises of the owner and not on a leash (if it is a female dog in heat) or any dog that is off the premises of the owner and not on a leash or under the reasonable control of some person. If an annoyance dog receives a third citation of any section of the ordinance it becomes a “dangerous” dog as designated by the state.
A dog is also designated dangerous if it has caused injury (other than killing or serious injury to a person), killed another dog or while off premises with its owner chased or approached a person in a menacing fashion, apparent attack or has attempted to bite a person. Finally, a vicious dog is one that has killed or caused serious injury to any person without provocation. Vicious dogs do not include police dogs being used to assist law enforcement officers in the performance of their official duties or a dog that killed or seriously injured a person committing or attempting to commit a trespass or other criminal offense on the dog owner’s property.
In other Council business:
•Council approved the third reading of a resolution to authorize the mayor to enter into a contract with Arcadis for Biosolids Studies at the Water Reclamation Plant, which will go into effect in 30 days. They also approved the first reading of a resolution authorizing the mayor to enter into a contract with Stantec Consulting Services, Inc. for resident project representation and construction engineering services for the Linfoot St. reconstruction project. Dennis Richardson, Director of Public Service reported that bids for the construction work open for the project on April 30.
•David Wright, Director of Regional Planning, reported that the state approved and released the funds for the Street Scape project which will include new benches, trash receptacles and ADA-compliant cross-walks. He is also working with serval downtown building owners in regard to the Downtown Revitalization project.
•Police Chief Keith Torbet announced that Safety City will be held June 1 – 12 and June 15 – 26. In addition, the Youth Police Academy will be held June 8 -12 and only has four openings left.
•Councilor Shane Chamberlin presented the Park Board report and noted that the new ball diamonds will not be open this year. He also reported that money has been budgeted to move the sidewalks back at Reighard Park to enlarge the parking spaces on Oak St.
•Councilor Jon Schamp presented the Safety and Code Committee report. He said that they were asked to consider removing Chapter 1134 Planned Unit Development (PUD) from the Wauseon Zoning Code. After discussion the committee decided to take no action regarding this issue.
Shar may be reached at
publisher@thevillagereporter.com