Some months the Oakhurst Message Board sits dormant, with only an inquiry or two about babysitting services or roof repair.   But every once in a while a post can light that place up like its soaked in kerosene.

Yesterday morning a poster named “smodan” wrote this on the site…

Early this AM, our cat was attacked by two roaming dogs (he was sleeping on our front porch on McKoy). One was a brownish pit bull and the other a black lab mix. We scared them away but our cat is in terrible shape and in emergency surgery. Be careful, as we suspect these are the same dogs that killed a cat about a week ago on McKoy. If anyone has an idea who these dogs could belong to, please let us know.

This post quickly led to a cascade of comments detailing other recent attacks and a vocal dissatisfaction with Decatur PD’s animal control unit.  This reaction and organized effort to email the Chief of Police was followed with a email sent by PD spokesperson Juanchella Francis to Oakhurst residents yesterday evening…

Thanks for sending us the complaints about dangerous dogs in Oakhurst as we were unaware of the situation until now. We are actively working on addressing this issue and our Animal Control Officer (Officer Cantrell) has been made aware of these complaints and the subsequent loss of pets. He is meeting with Capt. Boyett in the morning to finalize our plan of action regarding these complaints.

Our part-time Animal Control Officer (Officer Cantrell) was on medical leave from 4/13/09 until 8/18/09. During that time period, all calls in reference to dangerous animals were referred to DeKalb County Animal Control. DeKalb County does impose a $20.00 deposit to set traps. Decatur Police does not.

We are concerned about your safety and the safety of your pets and are working diligently to resolve the problem.

Also, according to a report from last night’s ONA meeting, Francis explained to residents that the city’s part-time officer actually works for the county and when he is off-duty all calls are redirected there.  Knowing the County’s response time to crimes involving humans, let alone animals, it doesn’t take much to understand why some residents are experiencing that odd feeling of dissatisfaction with law enforcement inside the Decatur city limits.

So, hopefully having our part-time officer back on duty will help resolve the current situation.  However, if folks are really that dissatisfied with animal control as this recent thread of activity leads us to believe, then it seems like the most obvious solution would be to bring the position in-house.  However that would obviously require money.

So, here’s the question posed to the community:  are you willing to pay more to employ a full-time animal control division that is on call 24 hours a day?  I’m no Andrea Arnold, but I can pretty much guarantee you it won’t be cheap.