GRANBY — Residents voted down the proposed animal control bylaw at the special Town Meeting Monday night, calling the legislation “unduly restrictive” for a farming community.

“It seems very atypical for a farming community to have a leash law,” resident Tim Abbott said.

The proposed bylaw, which was to replace the current canine control bylaw, was the only article of the six warrant items that did not pass.

The 76 voters in attendance at East Meadow School approved the remaining five articles, including a new tax work-off program for veterans and people over 60 years and an additional $115,000 for both the fire and ambulance departments to sustain service through the rest of the fiscal year.

“I would never have predicted that we would run 150 to 160 more calls than we did in the years past,” Fire Chief Mike O’Neil said. “In the last three weekends of October, we’ve run 22 fire calls. That’s just fire calls, not the EMS included.”

Animal control bylaw

Many residents were confused by the definitions in the animal control bylaw, such as the difference between a “domestic animal” and “personally-owned animal,” which made it unclear which regulation applied to which animal.

For instance, if horses are considered a “personally-owned animal,” then a horse that defecates on public or private property must be cleaned up by the owner, according to the public nuisance section of the bylaw. Select Board Chair Crystal Dufrense, however, noted otherwise.

“We’re not saying that you have to necessarily pick up your horse manure on town property,” she said. “We’re asking that you be cognizant of the fields that the kids play on at Dufresne Park, that you also are cognizant of (other) people’s property, not walking your horse or riding your horse on their property and letting them defecate everywhere.”

Other residents, especially parents, were in favor of a stronger animal control bylaw. Kevin Moforte, a father of three young children, said his kids are regularly startled by unleashed dogs at Dufrense Park. He recounted a time two weeks ago where a large dog rushed at his child, who took off screaming. Moforte found himself running after his child, with the dog in tow.

“Now, the dog was being playful,” he said,”But I don’t know if the dog is being playful, and I don’t want to have to always wait till it’s too late to find out if the dog is going to be aggressive or not.”

Town Meeting members sympathized with Moforte and expressed agreement that dogs should be leashed in public spaces, but took issue with other aspects of the bylaw. Sabrina Obremski noted that her dogs protect her horses, so prohibiting dogs from barking at night for an extended period of time will prevent the dogs from alerting the family about a threat to their livestock.

“These are very expensive animals, and we do need our dogs to be able to protect our livestock,” she said. “I think it’s two very different pieces of agenda, because we’ve also had children riding at Dufrense Park and we had dogs who were unleashed chase the horses and had kids get injured that way.”

The Select Board plans to rewrite the bylaw based on residents’ input at Town Meeting, and board member Glenn Sexton requested that town residents come to public hearings on the bylaw to give additional feedback.

Fire and ambulance budgets

Unlike the animal control bylaw, most residents spoke in support of the additional funds for the ambulance and fire budgets, despite this being the third consecutive overage. O’Neil explained that the additional funds will only cover salaries of firefighters and paramedics, who have been called in more frequently under the increased number of calls, as well as a provisional firefighter covering for an injured employee.

“This is not to spend money willy-nilly. This is to staff the Fire Department,” resident Joshua Powers said. “Everyone who lives here gets an ambulance within five to six minutes. They get a fire truck in five to six minutes. If there’s no staffing at the station, that goes away and you now wait 10 to 20 minutes, if an ambulance is available for mutual aid.”

The fire chief added that there are only two firefighters on duty in one shift for both fire and emergency medical services. If the ambulance or fire engine is out and the station gets another call, the chief must reach out to call firefighters to help. If no on-call staff can help, then mutual aid is the only option.

“It comes down to a safety concern and not being able to provide the highest level of service that you’re expecting when you call 911,” O’Neil said.

If residents were to vote down the article, the ambulance and fire service would be out of commission for five to seven days per month, with only mutual aid available to assist town residents. The only way to “slow the bleeding,” O’Neil wrote in an email to the Select Board, would be to hire more full-time staff.

“I really think we need to look at that (adding staffing),” resident Denis Houle said. “We are three months into the new budget, and we’re allocating [money] again. We could be here January, doing the same thing. It’s not the chief, it’s the town.”