Quincy's quality of life discussed
QUINCY - Quincy-area residents filled the city's community center to listen to presentations from city officials.
The city's police department organized the town hall meeting to focus on quality of life issues. Representatives spoke about the city's recreation program, animal control, code enforcement, the animal shelter and the police department.
"It's a variety of issues, so it's not just about one topic," Police Chief Richard Ackerman said. "It's about a variety of things that impact the quality of life here in Quincy."
Recreation
Mayor Jim Hemberry started the presentations by speaking about the city's recreation program. The mayor was filling in for recently-appointed Recreation Director Russ Harrington.
Harrington is planning to hold camps during the summer, Hemberry said. The director plans to restart the Battle of the Biz. He coordinated the series of competitions during the Quincy Centennial. The events during the centennial included basketball, croquet, Frisbee golf and softball tournaments.
"He's resurrecting that program and doing it again," Hemberry said. "You can have youth groups, businesses, families, friends, groups of people."
The city's pool will open June 10, Hemberry said. The city previously opened the pool by having a free swim day, but decided to cancel the practice after residents cited concerns about safety.
"We ran into a lot of liability issues. The pool was so packed last year that first day after school that it was just impossible for us to have enough people there to adequately make sure we took care of safety for all of the children," he said.
The recreation director also scheduled all of the summer bus tours leaving from the Reimann-Simmons House starting June 11, Hemberry said.
"He's also looking at running some sort of summer bus tour for the kids in our community. He's still trying to coordinate that, but he's working on that as well," he said.
Hemberry also mentioned movie nights at the Quincy High School will continue. The program was started by Youth Action, a group of students speaking out against drug and alcohol use and joining gangs.
"It's a great group of young people in our community who decided to speak out on those issues," he said. "They've done a lot of things already. They had an afternoon in the park. They had a dance here at the community center."
The group also held an event called Draw the Line, where people gathered to "draw the line" between alcohol and youth, Hemberry said, adding he was really proud of them for doing that.
"I think we ended up with 300 kids out there ... lined up all along the highway showing our signs to the cars as they drove by," he said. "In the upper valley, that means Wenatchee, Cashmere, Leavenworth, Entiat, East Wenatchee, they did it all together and had less than 300 people."
Hemberry said information for recreation programs is available at the city's new recreation website, www.qtownrec.us.
Hemberry is focused on working on youth programming to create alternatives to bad choices, he said. He hopes the programming will help to take care of some of issues coming up in the city.
Quincy Animal Shelter
Animal Shelter Director Debbie Latimer spoke about the accomplishments of the shelter. The non-profit group took control of the shelter about a year ago.
She said Washington State University nominated the shelter to be one of the best shelters in the state.
"It doesn't mean we're the biggest, or we're the most adequate, but when they came in and they saw how clean the animals were and how healthy and well-cared for they were, (the reviewers) were extremely impressed," Latimer said.
The group running the shelter is working on becoming a tax-exempt non-profit group, Latimer said. Once it reaches that status, the group will be able to collect the between $10,000 and $100,000 award for the nomination.
PetSmart also is partnering with the shelter and paying $10 per adoption, Latimer said.
"It's not a lot of money that we receive, maybe $50 a year, but they did come over and inspect our shelter and although it may be small, or it may be inadequate in some areas, they found that the animals were well cared for and it was also extremely clean," she said.
Latimer said the people at the shelter try to make sure the animals it has are safe. She pointed out some adoption sites may list animals as unsafe to other animals or children.
"It is very important that the animals that we adopt out are safe with children, with men, with women in every aspect," she said. "If they are not, they do not go up for adoption."
Latimer said the shelter seems to receive a large amount of animals for its size. She researched other shelters of a similar size and found one in a community of 37,000 people taking in 33 animals a month.
"At the Quincy Animal Shelter, we intake 44 animals a month, and as you can see we're nowhere near 37,000, which leads me to talk about the responsibilities that we need to be able to teach our youth and the people of the community about being responsible pet owners," she said.
The shelter constantly receives unidentified animals, Latimer said, adding the employees and volunteers don't know where they came from.
"They don't have tags. They're not microchipped. They don't have any contact information, so we get these animals that we have no way of knowing how to return them to their owners," she said.
The shelter staff also sees abused, neglected or undersocialized animals, Latimer said, adding she tries to tell people not to tie their dogs outside for a year.
"I can guarantee you that if somebody ties me up on a pole for a year, I would want to rip somebody's face off," she said. "It's the same thing for an animal."
Animal Control
Animal Control Officer Eric Talbot spoke about the laws governing animals in the city. He wanted animal owners to be educated about the laws in the city.
He explained dogs in the city need to be licensed annually and leashed, including animals which are normally well-behaved.
"So if you've got a dog and you're walking down the street and you've got it heeled next to you, and I've seen a lot of dogs that will heel next to you, and it's not on a leash, your dog is technically running at large," he said. "You can get a ticket for that. You don't want a ticket, so just get a leash."
He also explained the city has ordinances concerning pit bulls, classifying them as potentially dangerous dogs. Potentially dangerous dogs need to be registered with the city. The fine for not complying is $500 per dog.
Code Enforcement
Code Enforcement Officer Brock Laughlin told the crowd if they spot a code violation, they should get in touch with him.
"I do need your help, like I said we're a small department. We need more eyes and ears in the community for finding more of these code violations," he said.
Laughlin said he wasn't able to give the entire list of possible code violations, since it was long. The general idea is if it is a nuisance, it's probably a violation.
"If you were to stand outside and it looks like garbage, it probably is," he said. "If it's placed in a disorderly fashion, we can try to get on some of that, and keep our city clean."
He continued, saying compared to other cities, Quincy is clean. The purpose of code enforcement is to enforce city codes to preserve the living standards of people in the city and create a good business atmosphere.
"One of the things I try to do in code enforcement is I try to educate people about what a code violation is," he said. "In fact, there's probably only a few people who know all of the code violations ... there is an extensive list. There is about 30 in-depth code violations."
Laughlin said he puts the violations into layman's terms for residents, and they work with people to solve the issues.
He finds violations either through observing it, or when someone contacts the department.
"Most recently, I got an email from someone," he said. "It gave me the ability to go out and take a look at what the problem was, and especially with an email or a phone call, if you leave your name and number, if I have any questions about that, I can contact you to find out."