Animal ownership, resignations top city council agenda

Among heated debate on stray cats within Sidney city limits and recreational vehicles parked along city streets at the Sidney City Council meeting Tuesday night was also the remorseful resignation announcements of both city council member Aaron Barnes, and City of Sidney Chief of Police Mike Brown.

“Due to employment changes we are relocating to California so I am sad to report that I will have to resign from Sidney City Council,” said Barnes. Members of the council thanked Barnes for running and serving his time helping the community.

His resignation will be official Feb. 20 at his last council meeting.

Brown said that he and his family will be relocating to Kansas to be closer to family members battling health issues. His last day will be Feb. 28 but he said that it will be hard to leave Sidney and that living here and serving as police chief has been an “outstanding experience.”

“It’s something we just have to do – it’s family,” said the police chief.

Chief Brown’s impact on the community and the police force here will be felt for many years to come, and one of the best decisions the city has ever made was hiring him, said Gary Person, City of Sidney City Manager.

“It’s hard to see you go but I respect a man who puts family first,” said Mark Nienhueser, a member of the council.

There were a number of Sidney residents at the meeting to explain their desires to come out of decisions made on the Sidney cat population, as well as parking their campers in the streets.

“I’m not a cat hater. I have two cats at home, I have dogs and I’m an animal lover but this is an issue I would like to have addressed,” said Pete Morgan, a resident who moved to Sidney this last November.

Morgan said that the numerous stray cats running around the city goes against an animal ordinance that the city has and that the cats have already caused his wife and him grief.

He said that the cats have used his flower boxes as well as his yard in general as “litter boxes” and that the constant cleanup is tedious. The homeowner said that he is trying to fix up his house with various renovations and is worried to do so just for his property to be ruined once again by the animals.

“We are going to have to pull up the carpet on our front porch because those loose, stray cats have sprayed and peed on our front porch. Some neighbors in my neighborhood can’t even use their front porch because it’s been ruined,” he said.

“The furniture in their backyard is ruined too. They are going to have to throw that away and get new furniture.”

The Linden St. resident also talked of another couple that have a fishpond in their backyard. He said that the stray cats continued to kill all of the fish the couple would place in their pond, so they stopped buying them.

“Now they can’t even enjoy their own backyard and things they have worked hard to do. I’m not looking for something as a solution tonight but I want to bring it to your attention that that is happening,” said Morgan.

The resident said that as he read the animal ordinance it applied to things like dogs, mules and goats but also “any other animal.”

“The animals aren’t supposed to be at large or go into other people’s property and damage their property,” he said.

Morgan also said that he felt as though the cats hamper the wildlife of the city such as squirrels and baby birds.

In opposition to the man’s claims was Bob Evans, who has been a Sidney resident for the past 43 years.

He said that he currently has 10 cats and that two went missing recently and he questions what happened to them. He said the cats are inside cats and when they get let out they come right back.

Evans also said that he built an insulated cathouse outside where animals could go, keep warm and eat.

“The birds make an actual bigger mess than the actual cats do,” said Evans.

Evans said that he had all of his cats before the ordinance was in place that states that three cats should be allowed per owner.

He compared his cats to children and asked how he was supposed to just get rid of one of his “kids.” He noted that many people had lots of birds and fish so why should cats be any different?

“Cat ordinances seem to be more difficult to deal with because cats on leashes don’t seem to work very well,” said Mayor Wendall Gaston.

“About four years ago this issue was very thoroughly discussed and at that time the council even considered one of the issues of grandfathering this in is with dogs it was easy to do because they are licensed,” said Person.

“That way we knew who was in excess at the time that the ordinance was adopted. Cats have never been licensed. We did make a plea to the public that if you had more than three cats please let us know, but to my knowledge no one ever said that they had more than three cats. When it exceeds three you are supposed to have a kennel and a kennel can only be allowed in certain zones.”

“There is no real way to govern it unless you enforce the licensing of cats in much the same way as we do with dogs in that you can only license up to three,” he said. With the stray cat situation, most of it is feral cats and when people like Bob feed them they are going to come back. In a way you are almost offering ownership to them by providing subsistence.”

Person also explained that with capturing the wandering cats the city would have to pay a cost to board or euthanize the animals.

There is no real way to determine whether a cat is feral or domesticated, said Sidney Police Chief Mike Brown.

It was decided by council members that city officials would look into other cities policies on licensing cats and come back to the next meeting with ideas.

Council members also passed a motion to approve the updating of procurement, code of conduct and fair housing requirements for Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) federal funding.

Person said that some of the policies and requirements date back to the 1980s and federal language has changed since that time period.

Applications to fill the vacancy on the city council are due March 5 at 5 p.m. at the City of Sidney City Manager’s office and the position is open to any registered voter living in Sidney. A letter of intent and resume will serve as the application. Council members will consider applicants at their meeting on March 12.

More debate on the parking of recreational vehicles on city streets continued Tuesday night and one concerned resident said that it is hard for him and his wife to clean and repair their trailers if they are not allowed on the street.

“We travel seven months out of the year. If we cant clean and repair our trailers here it is very hard on us; this is our home base. Some of us have worked hard and retired here,” he said.

The changes to the proposed ordinance include that the vehicles can stay on the driveways and that there is no limit on the driveways, according to J. Leef, City of Sidney’s City Attorney.

Vehicles can be parked up to 72 hours on the streets and streets narrower than 37 feet cannot permit the vehicles to be parked on the sides.

“Some people have told me they turned garages into man caves and now they have three vehicles and they park one in the driveway and two on the street and now they don’t have a place to put them at all -- what do you do in that case?” asked Gaston.

“The city has a liability issue. If it’s under 37 feet they can’t park there. If you have a camper on each side of the street and life safety vehicles can’t service it the liability is going to get thrown back to the city,” said Nienhueser.

“My view is I’m trying to take care of the liability of the city from a life safety standpoint and protecting our asset as far as the streets to make sure they don’t get any further damage.”

It was decided that city officials will clean up language and print a map of the streets that would be impacted by the 37 feet rule and discussion will be continued next meeting.

The consultants for the swimming pool will be back Feb. 19 and 20 and will meet with the council once again to share with and collaborate on information gathered from the community and create cost assessments and ideas on how to move forward, according to Person.

The Planning Commission will also meet on Feb. 19 and will take up further discussion on the topic of accessory buildings. The next city council meeting is scheduled for Feb. 20 at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall.