Stewart tables pet ordinance again, looks at redundancy in city ordinance

The City of Stewart held a special meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 28, with the absence of Mayor Jason Peirce, to get approval from the council to process the cost to clean up a hazardous property and delinquent billings to the 2019 property tax levy. The line item passed just as quickly as it appeared as nobody showed up for public input.
After the motion to add the costs to the 2019 levy, the council approved a resolution to hire someone to monitor, process paperwork and train the new public works supervisor, Dominic Kadelbach, for water and wastewater. It also tabled a change to the animal ordinance for number of dogs and cats allowable on a premises and held a discussion on redundancy in the city’s ordinances.
The pet ordinance issue, month after month, has stolen countless minutes from Stewart City Council meetings, partly due to an important technicality that says a council member can’t vote on an ordinance in which he or she would directly benefit.
Nonetheless, Council Member Kevin Klucas, who was leading the meeting in lieu of the absent mayor, said, “I think we should table (the animal ordinance) because of some things that need to be talked about.” With the absent mayor and Klucas being the council member who voted as a benefitting party to the ordinance, there were only two eligible council members who could vote. So, they tabled the ordinance until next month, and the council said it hopes to have it approved in January.

(For the complete story, see the Dec. 5 print edition of The Chronicle.)