Commissioners are patient

I had the opportunity (as did you) to attend the May 9 Sanders County Commissioner meeting on ordinance No. 2019-01: an ordinance to control barking dogs within Sanders County and to establish procedures for enforcement.

Our commissioners amazed me with the patience and willingness to give everyone an opportunity to talk. What could have been a half-hour meeting took one-and-a-half hours!

This is why I would not want to be a commissioner:

1. After the third or fourth person stated the same issue they had with the proposed ordinance (which was addressed in the ordinance) I would have stopped the proceedings and told everyone to read the proposal first or if they didn’t know how to read, it would be read to them.

2. After the third or fourth person implied that the commissioners were doing something underhanded by trying to ‘sneak’ this into law, I would have explained how the commissioners’ action is advertised in the Sanders County Ledger under “legals” as required by law and that it is also on the Sanders County Commissioners’ website: co.sanders.mt.us/departments/commissioners-office.

I would remind folks that the commissioners did their duty and it is up to the public to educate themselves on what their elected officials are doing. It was suggested that a mailing should have been sent out, but when Carol Brooker stated that the last mailing cost around $5,000 of taxpayers’ dollars, that ended that discussion.

3. As someone who has a heart for veterans, I should have thanked the person who voiced his opinion by first stating he was a veteran who had fought for our rights. I should have thanked him for fighting for my freedom to have a good night’s sleep, not just the freedom of those who have “a dog that barks, howls, yelps, whines, bays or makes other noises at repeated intervals or incessantly for a prolonged period of time that annoys any person to an unreasonable degree.”

4. I would remind people that law enforcement is being called out when people get to their wit’s end from listening to a dog’s barking, howling, yelping, whining, baying or making other noises at repeated intervals or incessantly for a prolonged period of time that annoys any person to an unreasonable degree. It seems to me to be more of a burden for law enforcement to go out on a call when without this law, there is nothing that law enforcement can do.

5. And why does someone think that because they wear earplugs because of their snoring husband that I should have to wear earplugs in my own home because they won’t control their dog who is “barking, howling, yelping, whining, baying or making other noises at repeated intervals or incessantly for a prolonged period of time that annoys any person to an unreasonable degree?”

After all the barking, howling, yelps, whines, bays and other noises, I was grateful that Tony Cox’s tummy joined in the growling so the meeting would come to an end!

Kathryn Warrington,

Plains