GREENWOOD – Voters at Saturday’s annual town meeting approved ordinances establishing an official planning board, empowering greater control over barking dog complaints and legalizing traffic signs installed on town roads other than Route 26, a state road.
According to the selectmen, the planning board measure re-establishes an official planning board, which was first approved by voters in 1971.
The article establishing the board, however, was repealed the next year. Since then, the town has continued to seat a planning board, but Saturday’s vote was to make all past and future board decisions legal and enforceable.
The second ordinance allows town Animal Control Officer Ozzie Hart to process complaints about barking dogs and prosecute dog owners who don’t comply with official warnings.
The new traffic ordinance gives the sheriff’s department and state police authority to enforce speed limits and other traffic signs on town roads.
According to Selectman Wayne Hakala, as it stands now, the only authority held by the sheriff’s deputies and state troopers as far as enforcement of traffic laws is for state raids.
“Stop signs and speed limit signs we installed on town roads actually haven’t meant anything because we don’t have an ordinance giving the state and county the authority to enforce them,” said Hakala, “so we need to approve this ordinance so they can come in and patrol our roads.”
The ordinance on dog barking was the only one to draw even limited opposition, with several people saying it should not apply to the whole town, but only to heavily settled sectors such as Locke Mills Village and the Howe Hill area.
The selectmen and animal control officer said there needs to be a blanket policy about barking dog complaints so that Hart won’t have to ignore people with problems just because they live outside the developed parts of town.
“There can be problems most anywhere in town from time to time,” said Hakala.
Before the ordinance votes, the annual elections saw Loretta Michael defeat Herbert Dunham for a one-year term on the board of selectmen by a vote of 26 to 21.
Also, incumbent Hakala defeated Dunham for a three-year term as selectman, 27 to 21, and incumbent SAD 44 school board representative Jacquelin Brown was given another three years to represent the town on that board.
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