Rockmart City Council is looking at voting in a tethering ordinance.
Rockmart Mayor Steve Miller promised the city council will look into a proposed ordinance that would make tethering pets outside for long periods of time illegal.
The City of Cedartown took up the issue in past months and passed an ordinance explicitly forbidding animal owners from leaving their pets tethered up outside without adequate access to food, water and shelter with penalties involved for those who break the new rule.
Now Cedartown Humane Society president Charlotte Harrison wants the City of Rockmart to follow suit.
Harrison said she came to the meeting on the invitation of council member Sherman Ross to speak to other members briefly about the problems of tethering, specifically what harm it does to the community.
“Dogs feel the cold and the heat just like you,” she said. “They experience isolatio nand neglect just as you would if you were tethered. They die just as you would when starvation and neglect rave run their course.”
She contends that along with the harm it causes to animals, it also does serious harm to neighborhoods, especially with “children, who are likely to learn from it and inflict similar acts of cruelty on their pets and playmates.”
Harrison also pointed out that when pets are tethered, specifically dogs, they become aggressive since they don’t have usual human contact. When those dogs get loose, they often become a threat to pedestrians and neighbors alike, and are never seen again.
She also provided the council with sample legislation much like the one Cedartown passed in January, with the goal in mind that the City of Rockmart can move forward quickly with the proposal.
Right now, Cedartown is the only municipality in Polk County to bar tethering of pets outdoors, with the other three local governments still allowing the practice.
Though there wasn’t much business to take care of during the February meeting of the city council, Rockmart officials did vote to extend the deadline for the Georgia Environmental Finance Authority’s help with funding on the city’s wastewater treatment facility upgrade.
Council members voted to allow workers more time on completing the project at the Wastewater Treatment plant. They’ll get an extra time on the job according to City Manager Jeff El- lis, with no firm deadline yet in place as the work continues.
The council also heard from Ross on upcoming dates for the trip to the Georgia Initiative for Community Housing’s upcoming retreat in Albany. The City of Cedartown will also be participating in the event, with those Rockmart members starting their sophomore year in the program while Cedartown will be graduating later this year.
City manager Jeff Ellis also let the council know about emergency work that was done to fix a sinkhole that formed on Brock Avenue.
Ellis said that city public works crews dug out the hole and found broken pipes to be fixed within, and completed temporary work to fix the problem until crews could return and make a more permanent repair.
Polk County Public Works crews will be helping out this month with digging out the temporary repairs made by Rockmart crews, and add paving material over the hole.
When paving season arrives, Ellis said they hope to be able to fix the roadway with more than just a patch as well.
Rockmart officials at the meeting will be presenting their progress on plans to revitalize neighborhood areas within the city.
Officials were also reminded to keep their calendars open for March 18 when the annual WELSHFest will be taking place in downtown Rockmart from 9 a. m. to 5 p. m. around the Rockmart History Museum on Marble Street.