DURANT— Dogs and other pets may be banned from parks in a small eastern Iowa city if a committee of residents can’t find a solution to reduce animal waste. The Durant City Council on Monday established the committee instead of voting on a proposed ordinance that would ban pets in parks. The council created the committee after several residents objected to the ban at the meeting.
The ban sets fines that increase each time a person’s pet is found in a park. People would be fined $50 on their first offense, $100 on their second and $200 for all subsequent offenses.
One solution could be to provide pet waste stations with bags, said Bill Miller, who was appointed as the committee’s chairman.
Miller owns a Siberian Husky that he walks on the trail at Durant’s Feldhahn Park.
“I’m a police officer myself,” Miller said. “Let’s enforce those (current ordinances) and deal with it there instead of going to one extreme and ban dogs all together.”
But Mayor Dawn Smith said that it could cost $5,000 to set the bags up at all of Durant’s parks, which also include Jaycee Park and Pythian Sisters Park.
Miller and Smith say another option could be establishing a dog park. Still, Smith stressed that the committee has to find a feasible solution that the City Council would approve, otherwise the proposed ordinance will pass.