During Monday’s Marshall County Commissioner meeting an ordinance to provide for licensing of horse-drawn vehicles passed on first reading.
The county has seen an increase in costs of road maintenance and felt now was the time to start looking for additional funding sources. The commissioners have been shown proof of damages to county roads by the horses and the narrow wagon wheels that many of them use.
The news ordinance requires every resident of Marshall County who is the owner of a horse-drawn vehicle to pay an annual fee of $50 plus a $3 processing fee to the designated collecting agency. The tags will be valid from March 1, 2016 to May 31, 2017. The ordinance also has a late fee of $25 on any person registering a horse-drawn vehicle after the deadline.
All fees collected for each tag will be deposited into the County Highway Motor Vehicle Highway Fund.
The buggy ordinance makes it unlawful for any Marshall County resident to use or operate a horse-drawn vehicle on a public roadway without a county current tag. The first time penalty is $50, a second offense in the same year has a $100 fine. There is no penalty for anyone who lives outside Marshall County.
The ordinance has an effective date of January 1, 2016.
