[MissoulaGov] Committee Update 9-10-08

[Bob Jaffe]

Greetings,

This morning we opened with a report from Ed Franceschina from Animal
Control. The conversation focused around dogs.  Animal control serves the
entire county. They primarily respond to complaints about misbehaving dogs.
In between responses, if they have time, they will also patrol a nearby
park. I often hear the sentiment (at least on council) that too many people
have dogs off leash and animal control is being ineffective. Why don't they
do something about this.   

My take on Animal Control is that there are way too few of them to
effectively patrol all of our city parks and trails to cite people for
having dogs off leash.  In order to have an effective presence we would need
to fund at least one or two more full time people. That is very unlikely to
happen in the near future.  I think they should stick to responding to calls
about nuisance animals and hit the parks when they can to keep the potential
of a ticket out there. The police also make an occasional presence in the
parks and write dog tickets.  

The publicity around the leash issue a few years ago really brought about a
change in people's behavior. I could be wrong but I think there are way more
people that keep their dogs on leash than there used to be.  I think we can
get a lot more value for our money with education and promotional efforts to
convince people that it just isn't fair to others to let your dog run in the
park. I say this as a reformed leash scofflaw. There are a lot of reasons to
keep your dog on a leash in the parks and on the trails. It's one of those
things that comes with living in the city. That also goes for cleaning up
after your dog.  We used to walk our dog down on the Hart refinery property.
We affectionately referred to it as the doody triangle. Leaving your dog
crap on the ground is an environmental hazard and just plain uncivil.  I
think enough people will respond to the common sense issues around leashes
and poop that we can have an effective campaign using methods other than
just writing more tickets.

 

We also discussed licensing. There are two main reasons we have dog
licenses. One is to encourage rabies shots and two is to make money. We
generate about $120,000 each year with dog licensing which covers a
significant part of the animal control budget. We discussed having the vets
that do the rabies shots also sell the city licenses. We suggested they work
on streamlining the process and maybe looking for some kind of web process
to make it easier for the vets. We also talked about cats. Rabies are also
an issue with cats. Ed said we quarantine about three times as many dogs for
rabies each year than cats but we do have issues with cats.  I don't see why
we don't license cats too. 

 

We also talked about chickens. So far there have been 35 chicken permits
issued and animal control has had 22 complaints. No citations have been
issued but they have given notices for corrective action.  Complaints have
mostly had to do with distance between the coop and the house and chickens
being left out at night. At first there were some complaints about people
having too many.

 

Another interesting thing is that animal control pays two people to walk
around canvassing the entire city. They go door to door and ask if you have
any dogs.  They then try to get you to license them. In theory they cover
the entire city every few years. The program more than pays for itself in
the added license fees collected. I was thinking that since we have city
employees walking door to door we could maybe get them to do something else
while they are at it. Maybe we could do some other survey along with the dog
question. It seems like an underutilized resource.  Maybe they could hand
out a flyer about watering the boulevard trees.

 

 

For the bulk of PAZ we had a presentation from Duncan and Associates
regarding our zoning rewrite.  Here is the link to the latest:

Memo
<ftp://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/Packets/Council/2008/2008-09-08/Referrals/Refer
ralCodeUpdateMemo.pdf>  update 09/05/08

 

In A&F we approved a new 50 year lease agreement for the art museum. They
city owns the building and will be paying for some of the maintenance
contracts. That costs us about $36,000 per year.  

We also approved the new three year contract with the firefighters union.  

 

In public works we approved a contract for engineering the sewer system up
in linda vista and miller creek. The goal is to have this work coincide with
the reconstruction of the intersection at the bottom of the hill. Currently
there is a step system up there with about 12 different pumps. This will be
replaced by a gravity system that all drains down to the low point out by
the golf course and then has one big pump that sends it up to reserve
street. This will be more efficient and will do better if there is an
extended loss of electricity.

 

We also discussed the proposal to request a peer review of the Russell and
3rd EIS.  This means that we identify the things that we don't think the
consultant did a good job on and we ask another consultant to confirm if it
is OK or should be different.  The peer review becomes part of the public
comment that needs to be responded to.  The main areas of concern surround
the treatment of 4F properties and traffic modeling.  4F refers to historic
properties. Historic properties means anything 50 years old. There are some
conclusions in the EIS that are substantially based on the idea that 4F
properties must not be impacted. A number of us have heard from credible
sources that this is wrong. The complaint about the traffic modeling is
along the lines that it does not take into account adequately any changes in
behavior, transit and other modes, or long term land use policies. 

The peer review process would bring in a qualified consultant that does not
do substantial business with MDOT to critique the way these and other issues
are handled in the EIS and confirm that we are moving forward on a solid
foundation. The public works department was favorable to the idea. Dick
Haines was also supportive but thought while we were at it we should also do
a peer review of the Miller Creek EIS.  So we included that as well. We
ultimately asked public works staff to help organize the specific issues for
review and put together an RFP. Over the next week or so they will pull
together a few people to meet and develop the request.  

 

 

Thanks for your interest,

   

 

Bob Jaffe

Missoula City Council, Ward 3

 <mailto:bjaffe at ci.missoula.mt.us> bjaffe at ci.missoula.mt.us

406-728-1052

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