[8/14/03]A draft of a proposed animal control ordinance was approved by the Warren County Board of Supervisors Wednesday and will be presented to county residents at a hearing Sept. 25 for comment.

The county board has been struggling with how to word an animal control law for rural areas for several years. In November, the board contracted with the Vicksburg Warren County Humane Society to be the county’s animal control agency for $120,000 a year.

In approving the draft, the county board set the public hearing for 7 p.m. in the Warren County Courthouse.

The proposed ordinance says that dangerous or vicious animals and female animals in heat must be confined, but otherwise there is no leash requirement.

Criteria are defined under which an animal can be seized and impounded. There are also provisions setting out the procedures for releasing animals from impoundment, what can happen to them if they are not reclaimed and the fees applied to reclaiming animals. The reclaim fees are on a sliding scale from $25 to $100, depending on how many times an animal has to be reclaimed in a calendar year.

Further, animals must be vaccinated annually against rabies, which is already required by state law.

“This is a good starting place,” said Board President Richard George. “It’s enforceable and it’s affordable.”

Molly Norman, president of the humane society, said she was pleased. “We have already been doing much of this without the ordinance,” she said, adding the society has already purchased some of the equipment it will need.

While some county areas are densely populated neighborhoods where wandering pets are a problem, other areas are vast farm and forest lands where a leash law would not seem necessary.

Under Vicksburg’s ordinance, all pets in the city are supposed to be confined to yards and leashed whenever out.

In other activity, the board also authorized Chancery Clerk Dot McGee to begin advertising for bids and set the dates to open them on a revised renovation project for the Old Court House Museum-Eva W. Davis Memorial.

The county opened bids in July on the project, but all the bids were in excess of the about $625,000 the county had in county funds and a grant from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. The lowest of the bids that ranged up to $1.2 million was for more than $900,000.

Wednesday, architect Al Hopton showed the board the revised plans that deal with making repairs from only about the level of the parapets and above. Work on the lower walls and on the retaining walls was deleted. He also said there are three alternates the board can add to the project if bids are low enough.

Hopton said he hoped the work outlined in the new documents could be done for about $500,000.