OBSERVER Photo by M.J. Stafford Pomfret Town Board members, from left, Adam Rak, Kathleen Dennison, Mike Lee, EvaDawn Bashaw, and Dan Pacos sit at the January board meeting.

The town of Pomfret is applying for two grants to fund dog control and highway services consolidation studies.

The grants were evidently the same ones mentioned at a Fredonia Board of Trustees workshop on Monday. They are for $50,000 each.

Pomfret Town Supervisor Dan Pacos said the dog control study would look at the logistics of having one animal officer for the town, village of Fredonia, and both the town and the city of Dunkirk. The highway study would consider a merger of the town’s department with the Fredonia Department of Public Works. Pacos said it “possibly” would look at combining with town and city of Dunkirk services.

EvaDawn Bashaw, one of the Pomfret Town Board’s new members along with Kathleen Dennison, was rather derisive about the need for a dog catcher consolidation study. “A, I want to see if it makes sense. B, I want to see that it’s done the right way,” Pacos said.

The town supervisor admitted he is not sure what, if any, matching money is needed from Pomfret if it wins the grants. However, Pacos claimed that Chautauqua County could fund up to $100,000 in municipal consolidation studies done by Pomfret, and stated he is applying for that funding.

Pacos feels an outside consultant should do the studies. “If we do it, the parochial walls will come up and they’ll say, ‘I don’t believe what you came up with.'”

The town board voted unanimously to apply for the grants that would fund the studies. “Until we do a Request for Proposals we don’t know what a consultant will cost,” Pacos said.