{"id":40548,"date":"2022-09-22T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-22T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelandmark.com\/?p=40548"},"modified":"2022-09-22T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T10:00:00","slug":"paxton-working-with-rutland-on-animal-control-officer-solution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/2022\/09\/22\/paxton-working-with-rutland-on-animal-control-officer-solution\/","title":{"rendered":"Paxton working with Rutland on animal control officer solution"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Ken Cleveland <\/b>
\nLandmark correspondent<\/i><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

PAXTON \u2014 With no one in the animal control officer position, Paxton has been relying on Rutland\u2019s ACO to respond to calls.<\/p>\n

That has worked well as an interim solution, so the town is looking at it being a more permanent one.<\/p>\n

The idea of regionalizing the service has been broached before, but the Paxton Select Board at its Sept. 12 meeting voted to pursue the option.<\/p>\n

An intermunicipal agreement between the two towns would bring Rutland\u2019s animal control officer, with their experience and already working with several towns, into the position of responding to Paxton calls as needed.<\/p>\n

Already doing the work since the former Paxton animal control officer resigned, Rutland\u2019s Jennifer Ford would continue to respond, but under a more formal intermunicipal agreement.<\/p>\n

Select Board Chairman Julia Pingitore said previous boards have talked about the possibility of regionalizing the position.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looks like Rutland is agreeable,\u201d she said, and Paxton selectmen discussed moving beyond concept to implementation and the costs.<\/p>\n

Town Administrator Heather Munroe said Rutland already has an agreement with other towns.<\/p>\n

When the Paxton ACO resigned, Munroe said, \u201cThe first thing we needed was to get a gap measure going to fill the hole.\u201d That is when they connected with the Rutland police chief.<\/p>\n

She said Rutland was \u201cvery generous\u201d and moved forward at no initial cost.<\/p>\n

She said Holden was considered as a partner but needed a lot of things to be put into place, whereas Rutland was already doing the work for multiple towns under similar agreements.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe animal control officer has a good reputation,\u201d Munroe said. \u201cWe\u2019ll give it a try for a year, and it is up and running. It also takes one more thing off our plates\u201d not managing a person in the position.<\/p>\n

She said the arrangement would cost about $1,130 more than Paxton budgets for the position for the year, with Rutland charging based on population for the towns it serves.<\/p>\n

But some financial maneuvering is needed, since the funding is required up front but the current funds are allocated for a wage rather than a service. Munroe said she will work with the Finance Committee to use reserve funds, and later in the year return funds when the town can shift the salary and supplies funds. Because they are set in the budget line items approved at town meeting, reallocation is more complicated.<\/p>\n

Pingitore asked, \u201cIs she (Rutland\u2019s ACO) going to have enough bandwidth to accommodate us?\u201d<\/p>\n

Munroe said that most things would not trigger a call to the animal control officer.<\/p>\n

\u201cGive it a year. If it works, great. It\u2019s an opportunity to try something a little different and see how it goes,\u201d Munroe said.<\/p>\n

Selectman Kirk Huehls supported moving forward with the plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s kind of a better deal.\u201d Noting that \u201cskunks and raccoons issues were never dealt with in the past, it sounds like a better direction,\u201d Huehls said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sounds like we\u2019re going to get a more comprehensive service,\u201d Pingitore said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PAXTON \u2014 With no one in the animal control officer position, Paxton has been relying on Rutland\u2019s ACO to respond to calls. That has worked well as an interim solution, so the town is looking at it being a more permanent one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":96545,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}