I swear, I *couldn’t* make this shit up — in this case, literally!
Mayor wants horse manure off city streets
from The Baxter Bulletin Thursday, Sept. 21
The Mountain Home City Council will consider an ordinance to regulate the use of horses, mules, oxen, ponies and donkeys on city streets when it meets at 6 p.m. today in Council Chambers of the Municipal Building. The meeting is open to the public.
Mayor Ed House said the manure left by the fair parade animals is becoming a problem, and city hall gets many complaints.
The use of animals in parades or other uses on public streets can produce unsanitary animal feces on the city’s streets, the proposed ordinance states.
It is the obligation of the rider or handler to see that any feces that falls on a public street is immediately removed and any person violating the ordinance can be found guilty of a misdemeanor and can be fined between $50 and $100.
Poop-scooping ordinance tabled
Friday, Sept. 22
(Happy Birthday Bobby! What a great birthday present!)
A proposed ordinance requiring riders or handlers of parade animals to pick up the manure left behind by their four-legged friends was tabled during Thursday evening’s Mountain Home City Council meeting. Instead, it was decided the mayor will come up with parade guidelines to address the issue.
Council members also discussed affirming the mayor’s reappointments to the Planning Commission, and learned that last year’s water rate hike has not been enough to cover expenses.
A total of 28 people attended the meeting; about a dozen appeared to have an interest in the proposed manure ordinance.
Present for the meeting were Mayor Ed House and aldermen Jennifer Baker, Darrel Bennett, Stewart Brunner, Phil Frame, Charlotte Horton, Mary James, Marshella Norell and Chris Nosari.
Most of the aldermen were opposed to having an ordinance.
James suggested having a volunteer scoop the droppings after parades. Norell said participation in parades should be encouraged, and Bennett noted there are only two or three parades a year.
“Right now we are dealing with horse poo and donkey poo,” Frame said when the conversation drifted away to trash left after parades. {Incidentally, Phil Frame is running for mayor. Maybe this should be a campaign ad sound bite?!)
“You left out the goats in that ordinance,” Brunner said to House.
The city has an ordinance that pet owners have to pick up after their pets in city parks, and it is common sense that parade organizers ought to be responsible for cleaning up horse manure, Brunner added.
Tommy Rand told the council he is usually contacted by organizers of the Red, White, Blue and Christmas parades to clean up after the animals. Rand said he usually finds some young people who are willing to clean up and would find people to scoop after the parade if asked. “It is a minor deal,” he said.
“I agree the ordinance might be over-reaching,” City Attorney Roger Morgan said. “It may be good to set some guidelines for parades so they know what to expect, rather than pass an ordinance.”
After the ordinance was tabled by a unanimous vote, House said he would not re-introduce it.
AND, even better, from the statewide paper, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (or Demzette)
Mayor out to get dung off streets
MOUNTAIN HOME — Mayor Ed House is raising a stink about the horse manure left behind from last week’s Baxter County Fair Parade. Thousands of spectators lined the streets for the procession through downtown Mountain Home. School bands, floats, clowns, firetrucks and fair-pageant royalty paraded along the 1 / 2-mile route. Bringing up the rear were about 50 horseback riders, whose mounts deposited droppings on the streets. House said Tuesday he decided to take matters into his own hands after receiving complaints about the manure.
“What inspired me was the horse **** on the street,” the mayor said. {Priceless, really.}
House has drafted a city ordinance that would require riders or handlers to immediately clean up after their animals in parades on public streets. Violators would face misdemeanor charges and fines ranging from $ 50 to $ 100. The mayor plans to bring the proposal before the Mountain Home City Council at its 6 p. m. meeting Thursday.
“I’m not down on the horse people,” House said. “But we get a lot of calls about it.”
Baxter County Fair Parade Chairman Janie Edmonds has a different take on the mayor’s proposal.
“I think it’s crazy,” she said.
“It’s just aggravating [when ] we’ve got something really good happening,” Edmonds said. “We have a nice parade to be proud of.”
The Baxter County Fair is among the most-successful such events in Arkansas. More than 38, 000 people attended the fair Sept. 12-16 at the fairgrounds in south Mountain Home. The parade traditionally is a highlight of fair week. This year’s display was a week ago, on Sept. 13.
Edmonds has served as chairman of the parade committee for 25 years. While other communities have abandoned fair parades for lack of participation, she said, the Baxter County promenade grows larger year to year.
She wants the city to return to the long-standing practice of having the city Street Department clean up the parade route. Mountain Home should take the lead in finding a positive solution rather than enacting a law that might discourage horsemen from participating, Edmonds said.
Mayor House said street employees told him last year that they didn’t want to continue with the manure removal. The department had handled this duty for the community’s three big parades: the fair parade, the Mountain Home Area Chamber of Commerce Christmas Parade, and the summertime Red, White and Blue Parade.
The city workers feel that picking up after the horses is demeaning work, House said. He also didn’t like paying overtime for them to handle the job.
House said he warned local horsemen last summer that the city wouldn’t clean up the manure and that the riders would have to assume the responsibility. Horsemen who rode in the Red, White and Blue Parade in June cleaned up after their animals, he said. But the manure remained on the streets after the 2005 Christmas parade and last week’s show.
Edmonds said a local horseman who had volunteered to “take care of the problem” for the fair parade had left town unexpectedly. But she maintained that vehicle traffic and weather eliminated most of the excrement problem after a day or so.
The parade committee chairman also maintained that the Street Department was the logical choice for manure duty because it has street-cleaning equipment. Having city employees assigned to cleanup detail start work later on parade day could solve the overtime problem, Edmonds said. The parade typically begins about 5: 30 p. m.
The mayor’s draft ordinance would regulate horses, mules, oxen, donkeys or ponies used in parades “or for other purposes” on public streets.
Riders or handlers would be required “to see that any feces from their animal that falls up on the public street must be removed immediately.”
Edmonds said it’s not practical for a rider to immediately dismount and clean up after a horse. House countered that the horses could wear “diapers” or bags to collect the waste. But Edmonds said the horses used in the parades weren’t accustomed to wearing those items and fitting them with the unfamiliar bags could create safety problems.
House said if the ordinance doesn’t pass, city police would be authorized to write tickets for littering if horsemen don’t clean up after their animals.
