The town of Clymer participated in a meeting to discuss potential updates to dog laws. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

CLYMER — The town of Clymer was one of four towns to participate in a meeting with their shared dog control officer in July to look to update a few things when it comes to dog laws.

Clymer’s dog control officer, Kelly Thornton, is shared between Clymer and three other towns; Sherman, Mina and French Creek. The meeting was a brainstorming meeting to discuss updating some of the laws so they are the same across the board for all four towns, along with some other aspects such as her pay, and the items discussed at that meeting were then discussed during Clymer’s July town board meeting that same day.

“So, what Kelly Thornton is proposing, rather than being on an on-call basis, she would get paid on a per-diem basis,” Town Supervisor, Brian Willink, said. “The four towns in the south here, Clymer, Sherman, Mina and French Creek are going to kick in $100 each and pay her stipend of $400, to basically cover her time and expense.”

Willink said they are working on getting that approved in the payroll system, but that just means that she will get paid $100 a month from the town of Clymer. Budget Officer Riley Enlow noted that there is already a dog control officer position already on the roster.

Willink was unable to attend the dog meeting, but Town Clerk, Wendy Trisket did and said Thornton also wanted to do a rabies clinic with French Creek that will cost $200 and each town will be kicking in $50. As far as some of the laws go, Willink said it is very early in the process and nothing was decided on anything besides the increase in pay. Town Board Member, Melissa Murphy noted that some of the laws might not go over well in the town.

“I know we’ve mentioned noise ordinances, and if we have a noise ordinance for a dog then you have to have it for everything, and in a farming community that would be very difficult,” Murphy said. “And I don’t think that would be a really good idea.”

Willink said he thought the towns of French Creek and Sherman had decided to not move forward with anything yet, but town supervisor for Mina, Rebecca Brumagin, was going to look into some things. Trisket said Brumagin was going to be looking into some things that other towns do, coming up with her own idea, and then forwarding that to her attorney to see if it is legal and then go from there.

“So, we’re kind of watching what Rebecca’s doing,” Trisket said.

Willink said this was the first of many meetings in regards to this topic. It was also noted by the board that the dog control officer job was something that the person had to love to do at all and there was a certain amount of danger to the job sometimes. Willink said they are happy to have Thornton doing what she does for them in that role.