Should All Dogs be Leashed at All Times Everywhere in the Village?

Those CNN heroes!  Do we have to watch this or can we really start over after a disaster of this magnitude. And let Haiti exist? Aristide asked France for reparations in the exact amount in todays dollars, of the ransom Haiti was held at by France to stop a new invasion way back when. I won’t tell you the figure, (it was big sugar money back then which is what made Haiti what it was and is in the first place) but it would be enough for a real new start. A REAL new start. (OK about 20 billion.) If  all the nations that have promised financial help in the past would actually come clean on their pledges as Clinton mentioned last night we’d be at least half way there, it could happen. Start a new "Economy." Do real workable infrastructure. Support the already  exploitive (and you know it is) garment industry and ag industries with proper regulation (and yes this is necessary Ted and Keith.) Do sustainable reforestation. Ramp up the enormous tourism potential. Don’t tell me that this content doesn’t belong here. You all know it does. There are so many people in our town that know about/have been to Haiti. Or we can watch Sanjay be the hero. Do we care? Oh, and don’t get me started about Pat Robertson, HELL and the Boukman Sacrifice. Film at 11.

Note: Most of previous comment was general commentary and not directed at any individual.
Just gentle musings about the loss of purity of thought and vision. And not so gentle musings about how the "Third World" happens on purpose while many of the rest of us bathe in petroleum and drown in our "freedom." I don’t mean to preach and don’t deserve to.

Thanks honest abe. Whoever you may be. (and I hope you were referencing my comments about dogs and sociology, if not ….oh well.) You know, life is strange. You get a little older and all kinds of stuff comes back to you from when you were way young. And it is better than it was back then because you can understand what it really meant; (all that spatial orientation about what the universe really might mean. But without all the cool feelings you got when you were say 15; replaced by the rationality of a 50 year old, whatever rationality means.) And you traverse that strange space that you thought was so cool back then without drugs or consumerist inducement  free to just THINK about what and who you/we are. And now you know that we don’t know how we came to our earlier understandings, because we left them behind pressured into the paradigm that is total and drove us to  feel that we had to delve too deeply into "Humanity" and have kids and stuff. OK we did that, and we are (happily I hope) raising the next generation to be really deep if we can help it. We all need to think of course. We need to have their conciousness be so acute to deal with the problems we (not really you and me) have vomited at their feet. (Think Peak Oil,Climate change that we all talked about in the 70’s like it was today and now it is!!) So, pick up some dog poo. Its probably a zen cure for what we can’t have….ever. The security that its all going to be OK. Hell, it is not! I have worked in Haiti for 12 years. Turn on CNN. And perhaps say….Have a nice day??!! Its not good whats happening in the world today. You cannot give all the money in the world to banks…. Genuflecting to what everyone calls "Capitalism" these days and "Economics" which is just PR for Rich People, all the while printing more fiat currency while the third world starves. The news heads talk about how Haiti has had "political trouble" "poverty" etc. Its the poorest country in the Western hemisphere because France, USA, Canada and the G8 need it to be. And have made it so. You want to debate me?? Tell me that its all the fault of the Haitian Elite? Been there, Done that. Come with me and face the machetes! Sorry, don’t mean to be mean. But come with me to the ditches where the bodies lie and you will get it………….Or not. Maybe some will give me Ted Nugent/Toby Keith logic…KISS MY WRIST!!

The whole leash law business is silly.  No one has demonstrated that this is a serious problem in the village, and what’s more, to the extent a problem has been identified, it won’t be resolved by a leash law. 
 It’s not like the Village doesn’t regulate dog ownership.  There is an ordinance that requires a dog to be under the control of its owner and prohibits dogs from being allowed to run at large; a bite ordinance; one requiring tags; one dealing with barking and howling dogs, and an ordinance requiring owners to carry a device for cleaning up dog excrement. See Granville code Chapter 505. 
For some, this does not appear to be enough.  They express concerns that dogs that are not on leashes might bite people, or run into traffic, or leave excrement around the village.  Of course, all of those things are already illegal, subjecting the owner to a fine, and bites, accidents or other damages caused by a dog could be the basis for a civil action and liability to the owner.  Moreover, there isn’t any evidence that any of those things actually are a problem in the village.  Counting the number of reported bites by loose dogs in the last decade would not use all the fingers on one hand.  And there’s no evidence that any of those dogs were unleashed dogs walking in the town – rather they all appear to have been dogs that escaped from an owner’s yard.  A leash law wouldn’t have solved the alleged problem.
The end result of the insistance of Council Members Barsky and O’Keefe on pushing this non-issue solution to a non-problem is to needlessly divide people in the Village.  A perfectly reasonable compromise (leash required downtown) was ditched because these two wouldn’t compromise. 
This is exactly the kind of thing that wise local governance doesn’t do - that is, look for reasons to divide the village, and to restrict, in petty ways, our freedoms. 
I discuss this a bit more at http://mylittletown.wordpress.com/2009/12/29/dog-fight-granville-and-the-great-leash-law-controversy/.
  

Either leave it how it stands currently or change it to everywhere all the time but don’t try to pick and choose areas where
leashes are necessary. I guess we could all carry a map with color codes to indicate when we have reached a point on
the sidewalk where if one more step is taken without leashing up fido, it will  cost us.
I see leashes as being very similar to seat belts, just put it on. If your dog is that well mannered then a leash won’t be a
problem for either owner or pet.

Does this mean if my well-trained, very calm, arthritic, fourteen-year-old dog walks alongside me to my next door neighbor’s house I will get fined?
 
This sounds a lot like not allowing anyone to drive because some people have a greater than average tendency to run into things.