Some Indianola citizens have expressed a bit of dismay over Mayor Ken Featherstone’s pledge to enforce the city’s longstanding ordinance against pit bull dogs.
There are a lot of pit bull owners in town who were either unaware of the city code or may have been willfully disobeying it.
The former is understandable, as the mayor admitted during Monday night’s meeting that he was only recently made aware of the ban.
The latter may be somewhat understandable as the city has done very little in recent years to enforce it.
Worse yet, the city has been lax in its enforcement against vicious dogs in general, and it is commonplace to see packs of stray dogs menacingly wandering neighborhoods.
The pit issue took center stage this past Monday night when a victim of a recent attack by two alleged pit bulls spoke to the board of aldermen about his experience.
He very easily might have been killed by the dogs had it not been for the quick actions of someone who was nearby and witnessed the attack.
A number of solutions were posed on Monday night, including the mayor’s promise to set up a hotline for citizens to call when they see stray or vicious dogs.
The police department and public works, two departments that are out and about arguably the most, are tasked with identifying pit bulls and potentially vicious dogs, and IPD said that it would start to issue warnings to owners.
The animal shelter is responsible for retrieving the dogs, much like it did the two dogs that attacked in late February.
The city is fighting a lot of figurative fires on a lot of fronts right now, but the dog issue underscores a theme that has been consistent for several years.
We are largely a reactive city rather than a proactive city.
Reactions are often swift and harsh, much like the emergency order that affected several businesses after last July’s mass shooting downtown.
Proactive measures help to alleviate those kinds of painful situations.
Multiple times during the city’s meeting on Monday, board members brought up issues that have been ongoing for several months, with very little in the way of updates from department heads.
For instance, the board authorized months ago for a company out of Cleveland to examine the city’s well that had been giving it trouble.
This is a well that public works said was pumping sand last year.
The city has enough going wrong under the surface to have one of it’s primary wells go out completely.
It will likely be an expensive fix, but the longer the well’s problems go undiagnosed, the more difficult and expensive it will be.
Routine maintenance, once the well is fixed or replaced, will be paramount to it lasting for years.
Ward 3 Alderman Ruben Woods brought up a number of sinkholes that seem to be popping up around town.
Others chimed in about other sinkholes in other areas of town.
Woods also noted that trash pickup has been lax in some areas of town, which prompted a discussion about clawbacks in the city’s garbage contract.
Again, this is something that had been discussed months ago.
There just did not seem to be a sense of urgency to address these issues.
There hasn’t been a sense of urgency to enforce dog ordinances either.
And now the city has a bit of a political problem on its hands.
How do you go about separating a bunch of pit bull owners, many of whom swear to their dogs’ gentle natures, from their pets?
This past Monday, dozens of people packed city hall in support of dog ordinance enforcement.
There may come a day when a bunch of pet owners might show up in defense of their pits.
A proactive and pragmatic approach to this might yield a solution that may be mutually beneficial to both sides.
Reactive measures to appease one group will only build tension between city leaders and another segment of the population.
