Selectman Kit Devereaux on Tuesday said the volunteer committee that helps keep Spencer’s Run clean and friendly shouldn’t be disbanded, since its members in no way enforce the Waveny dog park’s rules.
Responding to comments that the town’s highest elected official made recently, Devereaux said during a regular Board of Selectmen meeting that members of the Spencer’s Run Committee are “a positive force in maintaining a collegial environment.”
“They monitor and refill bag dispensers, they actually go around and clean up the park on a daily basis,” Devereaux said at the meeting, held in Town Hall. “They must not try to enforce the rules, instead they contact Animal Control. It is a group of people that works hard at this and the reason that they have been included under the town insurance program is that they are working around dogs. So when you said that you thought they should be disbanded because there should not be committees enforcing rules and they are not enforcers.”
First Selectman Kevin Moynihan responded only that he would prefer talk about it at the next board meeting, when the possible disbanding of other committees—such as the Youth Sports Committee and Deer Committee—also may be addressed.
“I’d be happy to discuss that in two weeks,” he said.
At the prior selectmen meeting, Moynihan had said the newly formed ‘Dog Litter Committee’ has raised a red flag for Town Attorney Ira Bloom. According to Moynihan, Bloom said it was “not well advised” to “allocate enforcement responsibilities to a committee.” That also “raises the issue of the Spencer’s Run Committee for volunteers,” Moynihan said during the March 27 selectmen meeting. He referred to the recent banning from Spencer’s Run by Animal Control of a New Canaan woman who had a problem dog. Police said in an incident report that Devereaux had been advised of the problem prior to the decision to ban the beast.
On the larger issue of the dog litter/offal at Irwin park and Waveny, I would think that town workers could periodically walk the trails with retrieval equipment for litter that has been left for many months now. Every day at Irwin I see these “Shame on You” signs on yellow flags at dog litter locations, much of which is desiccated by now. At Irwin it would take 20 minutes for paid workers to collect this, probably 2-3x longer at Waveny. Concerned citizens could do the same thing. I don’t know any other town that does not have a system in place to address minor annoyances like this.