Council airs gripes about skunks

ThisWeek CW 10/06/2011

http://www.thisweeknews.com/content/stories/canalwinchester/news/2011/10/05/council-airs-gripes-about-skunks.html

Complaints about skunks were aired at the Oct. 3 Canal Winchester City Council meeting.

“We seem to have a skunk infestation in the city,” council President Marilyn Rush-Ekelberry said, asking Fairfield County Sheriff’s Deputy Jason Meadows whether the department had been receiving complaints.

“Yes, and we smell them. We’ve seen them a lot more this year. In the news, we’ve heard that a contributing factor might be the wet spring we had and some cities are trapping them and then taking them out to the country to re-release them,” Meadows said.

According to public service director Matt Peoples, the city won’t normally deal with animal-related issues on private property, only on city-owned property, although this practice has produced limited results.

“We had a $3,500 annual contract with Critter Control a couple years ago, and during that time, they only trapped three animals, so it obviously wasn’t cost-effective for us,” he said. “About that same time, one of our employees became a certified trapper, so we’ve made an agreement with him to set up traps.

“We did some research and we found that cities which have their own animal control officers do trap animals both on private and public property, but others without that don’t, so we’re in line with those,” Peoples said. “Our policy is to provide property owners with information about contracting with a private company.”

Meadows said this is also the protocol used by the sheriff’s department.

“We had a woman who was adamant about us trapping the skunk on her property, so our employee agreed to set his own trap for her,” Peoples said. “We know that the skunks love brush piles and the one we trapped for that lady was living in her brush pile.”

Councilman John Bender said he has received complaints about people feeding skunks and about specific locations where several skunks have been spotted. According to Peoples, the city recently trapped skunks at the community center, along High Street and near the Davis Paints building.

“I notified the property owners of Davis Paints and they boarded up the holes in the building to keep the skunks out,” Mayor Michael Ebert said. “We’ve trapped several this year on city property — it isn’t like we aren’t getting them.”

City officials agreed that it’s important for residents to keep dog food and cat food inside at night so the skunks don’t become accustomed to feeding from pet bowls, and to clean up brush piles and other nesting areas as a way to discourage the skunks from remaining in the city.

In other business Monday, council approved an ordinance to pay Dominick and Barbara Coci $1,600 related to repairs to their property on Jennings Drive resulting from a previously unknown 1880s-era drainage ditch that became clogged and caused a void under the Cocis’ basement.

“While we technically have limited liability, the city tied into it (the ditch) at some point, so we feel it is appropriate to assist in correcting this particular case,” finance director Nanisa Osborn said.

Peoples and Osborn have researched similar ditches and believe that several more exist around the city, but records of them often are just notes that explain the ditches’ distance from a farmer’s property lines, most of which do not show up on historic maps.

“We wouldn’t have known this was happening except for the obstruction that caused the flooding on the street and in their basement, so we’ve got further investigations to do over the coming years,” Peoples said.

The next city council meeting will be 7 p.m. Oct. 17 at Town Hall, 10 N. High St.