King approves urban archery season
By Nicholas Elmes, The Stokes News, Walnut Cove, N.C. | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
The council has been considering the program since January as a method of dealing with the deer population in the area.
At Monday night's meeting three city residents spoke against the proposed program citing concerns about safety and questioning the effectiveness of the program.
"To consider hunting with bow and arrows is incredulous," said
There is no way you will keep people off of private property," he said. "I hope all of you realize how deadly a crossbow can be at 50 to 60 yards. We have nine acres. If I want to walk on my property and they shoot me somebody is going to be in trouble."
"I do not think the bow thing is the way to go," he said. "There are too many houses too close together in the area."
Mayor Pro Tempore
"The stats we have on it reflect there is one deer run over once a month," he said. "In my opinion we do not have a deer problem."
He also raised concerns about how the ordinance change would impact other weapons regulations.
"If you bow hunt you are allowed to carry a .22 revolver to discharge a deer," he said. "A deer is not going to fall with a bow. It will run for a hundred yards or further. For the safety factor I think we should avoid this. You are opening up Pandora's Box."
Councilman
"We had 17 deer related accidents from February to February," said Carico. "I bet if you are the person who had to file the insurance claim and had to replace the vehicle you thought the deer population was a very important issue. The evidence shows all across the state we have municipalities that have taken up urban archery as a way to control the deer population and there have been no issues where there has been an accident."
"We are not trying to do something that is brand new or different than a good number of cities all over the state," agreed councilman
Burnette also questioned the response from the public over the issue.
"One person has spoken for this and we have had three people speak against it tonight," he said. "If everyone wants it, where are they?"
Mayor
"Maybe we could try this for one year," he said.
Burnette was the dissenting vote on the ordinance change which will set the city up to hold its first urban archery season in
Under the new ordinance hunters would be required to follow all state and local deer hunting regulations; would be required to have a hunting license; would be prohibited from using firearms; would be required to hunt only on private, not city, property and would have to have written permission from the property owner.
The new regulations would also require hunters to only discharge a bow from an elevated stand located at least 10 feet above the ground; would only allow hunting on parcels of land greater than 1.5 acres; and would prohibit discharging a bow within 250 feet of a house, school church or other occupied building, street, road, park or recreation area.
Change in voice, data service provider projected to save thousands
Council approved a recommendation from staff to change its provider for telephone and internet services from the existing provider, VC3, to
"Due to ongoing issues with connectivity and other concerns, in the fall of 2013 a committee was formed to look at the issue," said City Manager
The city had a variety of issues with existing service including problems with having reliable service at some city offices and problems with long distance numbers being assigned to some departments.
The committee explored costs to change service with both Windstream and
"You would basically break even in eight months," said Dearmin, adding that the switch to Windstream would resolve all of the existing issues with the network and offer similar or better service.
Other Business
Council approved a request by Allegacy FCU to utilize .44 acres of the city's watershed allowance on a tract located at
Council set two public hearings for their
Council approved a request by staff to start the process for a tax foreclosure on an abandoned home at
Council denied a request by
Council approved a new contract with
Council approved a contract for the yearly audit to be performed by
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