What To Do About Dead Animal Disposal In The County?

The issue of dead animal disposal continues to be a very big and expensive problem for the county. It appears that the county is leaning toward renewal of the current contract for another six months. This is supposed to give the leadership some breathing room, the problem is that they had the last six months and nothing was done until the contract was up for renewal.
While I agree that the current expense of disposal is much too great for the county I also believe that without the county leading the effort there will be a number of very serious potential problems that may develop. Many farmers do not have land area sufficient to bury animals properly. Because the expense of disposal will be more than some can afford I fear some may decide on less than appropriate means of disposal.
I believe a possible solution may be in a voluntary contract service such as now exist with the Fire Department.
Each year those who chose to participate would pay a fee based on the number and size of animals they keep, something in the neighborhood of ten or fifteen dollars a head for large animals and five to ten dollars for smaller animals.. The fee would provide for animal disposal for that individual during the year. Those who choose not to take part would be responsible for the total cost of proper disposal. Those caught violating proper disposal procedures would be severely fined.
Under this plan the county nor the citizen would be responsible for the full expense of disposal but would together provide the much needed service at a reduced cost to each.

Legislative Meeting 2 Feb 2011 4:30PM

Some information from the Legislative Committee that met this evening.

The Charter Commission had requested that the nine months set aside for them to meet and develop a County Charter, be structured where they could be on hiatus from April 2011 until May of 2012. This was requested so that the committee would be able to meet as individuals in their respective districts and discuss with groups of citizens their ideas for the Charter. There would be no additional expense incurred because of this change in schedule.
Presently the County Charter is completed and posted on the Pulaski Citizen website. It is this post that the committee hopes citizens will read and make suggestions. All suggestions will be considered with the greater consideration placed on those suggestions that are heard the most.
The Legislative Committee voted unanimously to approve this structural change.

A second matter brought before the Committee was the issue of "Nuisance Laws" and resolution 03-51 which was passed in 2003 establishing a "desire" to use nuisance laws to stop such things as trash piles, overgrown fields, abandoned/junked machinery and house trailers, etc. Since the passage of this resolution there has been no enforcement and the problems caused by a lack of enforcement have only gotten worse.
It was decided to form a study group to define what a nuisance is and what to do about it. This ad hoc committee is made up of Commissioners Beech, Carpenter and Howell they will be joined at their meeting Monday, this is a tentative date, night by the County Attorney Mrs. Henson.

The third item of business involved the recent decision by the Legislative Body not to opt out of the state mandated inspection program. Commissioner Wilburn presented an e-mail from the head of the Grant Division for the state who in writing stated that the only grants that would be impacted by the county not being in the program was those that directly involved energy conservation. She went on to state that there were no more energy grants in the state and no expectations of any new ones coming.
Clearly the Legislative Body was misled about the impact of getting grants from the state. Because the vote of the Commission was cast under the influence of misinformation the committee voted to present the issue for a re-vote at the next regular scheduled meeting. Commissioner Beech expressed very strong opposition to doing a re-vote or opting out of the inspection program.