LAKEWOOD — Complaints stemming from an incident at a Lakewood dog park that resulted in a ban were again aired during a meeting of the village board this week.

Linda Domizio of Jamestown, who addressed the board previously, again said she feels the ban from the Lakewood Bark Park is “unfair and unjust.”

“What basically happened is somebody filed a complaint and we were banned without any change to present our side,” Domizio said. “I was not contacted by the police, I was not contacted by animal control, I was not contacted by anybody in the Lakewood village government. I just received a letter that said, ‘You’re banned and this has happened multiple times, so you are banned.’ That is unfair.”

Domizio said anyone could make a complaint and the parties involved would be banned.

“It’s not a question of what happened at the dog park,” she said. “It’s how this has been handled by the village.”

Rose Colucci of Jamestown also returned to discuss the dog park issues. She said she realized that Ellen Barnes, a member of the Lakewood Village Board, had asked for a month to work through the dog park issues, but said she found that to be unfair to the dogs that had been banned from the park.

“It’s our dogs — we have to be the advocate for our animals because no one else will be that advocate,” she said. “I just feel like it’s a really harsh punishment when the accusations are meritless. I’m going to stay here to stand and state that my dog has never attacked another dog.”

Barnes said the policies are still being worked on, and Lakewood Mayor Randy Holcomb said a discussion will be had regarding the matters.

In other news, area resident Mike Looker submitted various questions by email to the board regarding the Spectrum franchise tax. This tax is a fee billed to customers of Spectrum that is provided to the village as a revenue source.

Holcomb said the franchise tax will remain the same “as we’ve had it year after year.”

“As we’ve explained it to you,” Holcomb said to Looker. “I know you don’t like it. At this point, we have not had a discussion to change it or get rid of it.”

Looker said last year, after 16 weeks of discussion the board held an executive committee meeting and voted “no” on getting rid of the tax.

“However, no one ever told the public — the taxpayers — why,” he said. “This tax is clearly unequal and unfair. You’ve got 400 people paying $40,000 and 2,600 people paying zero year after year after year. That’s not fair. It’s a tax for general fund purposes to run the village. It needs to be part of the property tax and paid for proportionately. Now, you need to tell us why you’re not doing that — not just say no.”

Holcomb said the board had not discussed a change at this time, and that is the “answer for now.” He said the board is going into budget preparation when these types of things can be discussed.

In a later interview, Holcomb said only customers of Spectrum in the village have to pay the tax, and those who choose other services such as cable or streaming do not have to pay the tax. He said the revenue source keeps village taxes down, and the loss of that source could have an impact on taxes in the village.

Holcomb said village board member Rich Fischer is contacting Spectrum and will report back to the board at its next meeting. He said with new members on the board, they may not agree with the tax and it could be changed.

“We’re going to hear from Rich Fischer at the next meeting on what he finds out from Spectrum, and I’m sure we’ll have another discussion,” he said.