Earlier this week, the Greene County Supervisors passed a resolution to hire a part-time animal control officer.

Raccoon Valley Radio previously reported from Sheriff Steve Haupert that about 15% of their calls are animal control related and he felt that the county needed to have an animal control officer so deputies didn’t have to respond to those types of calls if they were on another call.

Garrett Riedesel currently works in the sheriff’s office as a part-time jailer and is a college student.  Through the summer intern program with Greene County ISU Extension office, he was hired to be a part-time animal control officer.

Haupert notes that Riedesel’s responsibilities would include responding to all animal control calls in the different towns and issuing citations for animal violations such as not having proper tags and enforcing all parameters of the 28E agreements with each town.  He would also be responsible for taking any loose animals to the shelter in Jefferson.

Haupert describes a solution where law enforcement could bring loose animals instead of overburdening the volunteers at the Jefferson animal shelter.

“Presently, we are working with towns throughout Greene County to try and establish a shelter, a small shelter of their own where we can take dogs or cats to for lock-down in the future.”

Riedesel will work 20 hours per week at an $8 per hour rate from June 2nd through July 25th with payment to come from the Extension office.  His would continue as a part-time jailer with the sheriff’s office.

Supervisor Chair John Muir comments that this is a good test run to see if having a permanent position would be worth the county to invest in.