Howell council members
put bite on barking code
BY KATHY BARATTA
Staff Writer
HOWELL — An amendment to Howell’s nuisance law as it regards barking dogs was struck down in a 3-2 vote on the night it was scheduled for adoption.
Councilman Juan Malave, who was the only member of the Township Council to vote against the amendment at its introduction in June, was joined on July 20 in voting it down by Deputy Mayor Cynthia Schomaker, who is running for re-election to the council, and Councilman Joseph DiBella, who is running for mayor.
All three officials voted not to adopt the ordinance amendment which would have removed any pre-determined time limit for a barking dog’s continued barking.
The ordinance as it stands sets time periods for the amount of time a dog can bark before it is deemed a public nuisance and in violation of the township ordinance.
Mayor Timothy J. Konopka and Councilman Peter Tobasco were in favor of adopting the amendment which would have removed any time constraints and given more discretionary powers to a municipal court judge who would have to rule on noise complaints relating to a barking dog.
Under the terms of the existing ordinance, a dog owner may receive a municipal summons only if his dog "barks, howls or yelps for a period of more than 20 continuous minutes between the hours of 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. or for a period of more than 15 continuous minutes between the hours of 10 p.m. and 7 a.m."
Continuous is defined in the ordinance as being "uninterrupted, unbroken, not intermittent or occasional; so persistently repeated at short intervals as to constitute virtually an unbroken series."
The amendment to the ordinance would have eliminated the time limit on the duration of time a dog has to bark in order to be in violation of the dog barking ordinance.
Instead, the amendment stipulated that "No person shall own, keep, harbor or maintain any dog which habitually barks or cries between the hours of 8 p.m. and 8 a.m."
At the time of its introduction, Township Attorney Thomas Gannon said the amendment was deliberately written in order to be "nonspecific" so a presiding judge could decide complaints based on the individual merits of each one.
Township Manager Bruce Davis said the amendment would likely be reworked and reintroduced at a later date and feature a set, unacceptable time limit for a dog’s barking that would be less than 15 minutes.