A member of the Jamestown community presented information to the City Council during Monday’s meeting suggesting that the deer problem is not as serious as the city believes.

The local resident from Hess street said she came to the meeting in response to recent news reports about local residents’ concerns with sick deer and lime disease.

Contrary to recent reports, the resident believes the overpopulation of deer in Jamestown does not present a lime disease problem for the community.

“They did just do a new study that once a tick bites a deer, it no longer carries lime disease,” she said, “so it can’t infect people from that.”

While local residents have urged the City Council to act on the issue of the city’s deer population due to “sickly” deer, she believes the local deer population is healthy.

“I think Jamestown has a very healthy deer population, which some people would say is part of the problem, why they’re having twins and triplets,” she said.

She explained that in any group of animals, there is the potential to find one that is sick; however, she does not believe this is representative of the deer population as a whole.

The local resident also provided print-out information to the City Council regarding the lime disease study and a list of “proven plants” that she claimed deer “will not eat.”

After presenting the City Council with information she collected and making public comments, she asked the City Council members if the city had made a decision regarding the deer issue.

“At this point, nothing specific has been decided,” City Council President Anthony Dolce, R-Ward II, said.

After the City Council’s voting session, Dolce explained the local resident had presented similar concerns and information to the council last year when the City Council had considered a “deer hunt” in the city.

“I know that the woman who came tonight, she came last year,” he said. “There’s a lot of people who do oppose a hunt in the city. They believe the deer can coexist.”

Dolce said the City Council’s previous plan was not supported last year because of some “concerns at the last minute” regarding the implementation of the proposed “deer hunt.”

The City Council is expected to hold further discussions regarding the overpopulation of deer in the city in the coming months. Dolce said the issue is one that local residents do not fully agree on.

“There are people out there that do not want to have a hunt or kill in the city of Jamestown,” he said. “You get inundated from both sides. You get emails from people who obviously want us to do something about it and people who oppose trying to have something done. We’ll listen to both sides. She brought some information forward, and we’ll take that into consideration.”