Commissioner Steve Rideout
swrideout@aol.com
August 23, 2019

Dear Readers:

I wanted to let you know that there will be some ordinances on the agenda Monday for first reading. There won’t be public hearing until the first meeting in September, but some members of CAN, Next Door, and the community may be interested. When I do my Cambridge Matters report, I will provide more detail.

The two areas of interest relate to animals in the city and trash collection.

With regard to animals, the proposed ordinances will address animals (particularly dogs) running at large in the city and clearly identifying the owner or handler of any animal as the person responsible for picking up pet waste and properly disposing of it. The ordinance will empower the city police to issue civil citations to enforce compliance with regard to these matters.

That means that if the ordinance is passed a call can be made to the police as well as the animal wardens for incidents in the city. That also means that if a civil citation is issued based on the complaint of a citizen, the citizen will be expected to attend court and bring witnesses to support the citation and provide evidence in court. The police will not automatically attend court hearings unless summonsed for that purpose. The reason for that is that in most cases they did not witness the incident, and what they could say in most instances would be hearsay and not admissible in court. The person who called the police, would have the best evidence as presumably they observed the incident and know who the other witnesses are.

With regard to trash collection, since the city has gone to a private collector, the old rules are out of date. We are proposing new rules that are not changed that much. One thing that is changed is where the trash containers need to be kept when not out front of the property for twice a week pick up. The city will be providing more public notice about this process if the ordinance is passed, but the basic idea is that the cans can’t be put out too soon or left out too long. In addition they need to be stored behind most homes or beside/behind homes that are on corners. The rules are more detailed and will be more clear than what I have just stated and excuse specific placement under certain conditions when there is no reasonable place to put the container. Code enforcement will provide warnings to residents (tenants) and home owners before issuing civil citations.

The purpose of this legislation is to help improve the appearance of the city by removing trash containers from in front of houses, when possible.

Finally, the city has placed one and possibly two new dog waste stations to help people pick up after their dogs. One is on High Street at Christ Episcopal Church. I am not sure where the other one is. I am hopeful that more can be placed in order to help the community be in compliance with the new ordinances, that I hope will be passed.

The number of times that I saw dog poop that was not picked up near Christ Church no High Street caused me to ask the city to do something about that. I felt it was both unattractive, a health hazard, and a challenge on Sunday’s for people who park there to attend church.

Steve