At the Wednesday January 16^th commissioners meeting there was standing room only, with many kennel owners ready to submit public testimony against the proposed Columbia County kennel ordinance. Frustration become obvious from the kennel owners who continued to voice their objections at the nearly 2 year time frame that it has taken to try to come to a some what satisfactory compromise between the kennel owners and the county. The ordinance, which was being present to them, was nothing close to what the group had believed to be a final agreement, by the county, and representatives from the kennel group.
Complaints regarding the ordinance were many; one main complaint was the licensing. The ordinance demanded that the license of the kennel be openly displayed at the kennel, while kennel representatives had no problem with displaying the license, they had objection to being fined if the license was not displayed, explaining that the county takes 6 months to issue their license after they paid their fees, and they should not be held responsible for the county's apparent non- efficient system.
Another issue was the $200.00 license fee, one individual was not happy that they were charged two hundred dollars for a business license while Boise Cascade is charged only $150.00 I agree, something is definitely wrong here.
What bothered me, as I sat and listened to the exchanges between the commissioner and the kennel folks, was that Tony Hyde made a remark which struck me odd, he said that he had not read the new ordinance, and he thought that every one would join hands and sing
Kumbaya. In my opinion Hyde was ready to approve the ordinance if there had not been an outcry from the kennel folks, sorry way to handle county business commissioner Hyde.
We have a state ordinance that governs kennels and the county should enforce such ordinance, if there is a problem with "Puppy Mills" in the county than an adopted ordinance should be drawn up, what I find frightening about this ordinance is some of the wording in the ordinance, it is very broad and encompasses all pets.
Under section 1. Definitions A. Kennel means for the purpose of this ordinance any establishment maintained by public funds, private funds, or a combination of public and private funds, that uses such establishment for holding pet or captive animals, including the following #3 Any establishment operated and maintained for the purpose of breeding, buying, selling, or bartering, of pet animals for profit or compensation will be considered a kennel.
This actually means that any one who owns a single species or collection of any type of animals/pets of more than 9 what ever the case may be, would fall under this ordinance and would have to be licensed as a kennel.
If you sell a cow, pig chicken or trade an animal for work done for you, you become a kennel and require a business license.
If a 4-H kid has more than 9 animals they would be required to be a kennel, and must purchase a business license. I wonder if the fair will help the commissioners enforce this ordinance if it becomes law, by checking for current business license of the fair participants? And maybe render a fine too? I personally addressed this point and made my thoughts plain, who ever wrote up this ordinance needs to try again.
Since there were so many people addressing their objection to this new ordinance the commissioners felt that it would be wise to go back to the drawing board and try once again to draft something that both parties could live with. I wonder if there had not been such an outcry against the ordinance as written, would it have been voted into law? In my opinion it would have not received a second thought, and most of us would be buying kennel licenses.
I am eager to see what the assistant county council comes up with this time. Hopefully it will not take another two years to remedy the problem.