Dead Skunk In The Middle Of Council Chambers

Mark Gee had a bee in his bonnet — or, shall we say, a skunk in his trash bag. The skunk, he said, had been lying on the side of Kenyon Avenue between First Avenue and Division Street for a couple of weeks. The more often he saw it, the more frustrated he became.

“When’s someone going to pick this thing up?” the Town Councilor recalled thinking. “I was under the old-fashioned civic responsibility impression that someone from Public Works might notice this animal and pick it up and dispose of it.”

After two weeks, Gee mentioned it to Town Manager Bill Sequino following a meeting. “I said, ‘How come our highway department doesn’t pick up dead animals on the side of the road?’”

Sequino told him that wasn’t their job.

Not satisfied with that, Gee decided to pick up the animal himself and hand deliver the carcass to Public Works Director Joe Duarte. Which he did, on Feb. 13, right before the start of a Town Council meeting at Town Hall.

Gee took the skunk, which he had bagged and which, he said, no longer smelled, and placed it on the table in front of Duarte.

“I dropped it on the desk in front of Joe Duarte,” Gee recounted, and he told Duarte, “I don’t know who’s responsible but I’m leaving this with you.”

“Unless somebody calls, that’s not our responsibility,” Gee said he was told by Duarte. Having made his point, Gee said, he took the bag and returned the carcass to the bed of his pickup truck and the meeting convened.

Duarte declined to comment on the incident, but he did reiterate the town’s policy regarding roadkill.

“We get a call, we take care of it. But we don’t go out hunting for this stuff,” he said. “The animals take care of the animals. Crows and fox pick up roadkill and make it go away. That’s what happens 99 percent of the time.”

The town’s animal control officer, he said, will take care of dogs and cats. Dead animals in your yard are your responsibility, Duarte said. “We don’t go into people’s yards.”

He cautioned anyone picking up dead animals to wear gloves and double-bag the animal before placing it in the trash.

According to an official at the state Department of Environmental Management, deer is the only animal they will pick up and, only then if it is not too decomposed. Again, however, only if the deer is on or near a roadway.

For Councilman Gee, it's a matter of dealing with what's in front of you. But he conceded that DPW workers may not have seen the skunk. "Anything's possible," he said.