Travis County Commissioners Court
February 22, 2005
Item 36
Item number 36 consider and take appropriate action on proposed regulations in Travis County governing animal control and related matters. The commission is meeting tonight and we did get a few e-mails from people asking for additional time. I move that we extend the public comment period until Friday of this week. And that is February 25th at 5:00 p.m. That we indicate our intention to have this matter back on the court's agenda two weeks from today, and that will be March 8th. Correct? That will give us basically a little more than a week to look at all the comments that we have, the economy an opportunity to meet again -- committee to meet again if necessary and the court to mull over all the public comments.
>> second.
>> discussion?
>> judge, let me say there have been a ton of things brought up as great points. You know, but we have reacted -- you say you rye act when you sit up here and children have been mauled. You react when you sit up here and people's animals have been almost taken out of their hands. You react to those things. You all would react to them. But perhaps we've been a little overzealous with getting into this thing and going, okay, this has gotten beyond -- because i've had lots of five-minute conversation that have turned into 30-minutes conversations about this. And by the way, I'm pretty good at that myself so I can't really throw rocks at you. But I think it's perfectly understood at least from the precinct 3 Commissioner's seat, I want something that allows us to deal aggressively with an animal that has taken and has, you know, taken the life or has done something to another person's animal. And state law basically the definition is -- is whether we really fall down on state law is that doesn't -- correct me if I am wrong, but I think that, you know, the animal, the aggressive nature towards another animal is basically where you draw the line. And that's just ridiculous. Now, I'm not saying that is a chicken going to be attacked or run after by most dogs? Sure. I have never intended for this thing to get in and for us to be so aggressive where, you know, we wouldn't have a committee, for example. This is all, I mean if it's a three-member committee that says let's look at this thing, that's really not the intent because what you really talk about here is what all of us know. We are looking for intent. I'm not looking for dangerous wild animals in this thing. I'm just looking for the ability to take somebody's animal that has displayed more than once a very aggressive nature with another domesticated pet. Do I think and I grew up in a county scene. And a dog will chase a cat. That's just sort of the nature. A dog will chase an ant, tease it, I guess. The point here is that we all know what we're after. And so we can get to a point here where all of us get so frustrated because we can't get what we're trying to get accomplished. We had 35 people in the room saying we really needed help this summer. And that's really what they are saying. We thought we were holding the public hearing because a little girl almost lost here life. But we had more people show up because they said we had a dog in the neighborhood and we couldn't control the dog. And quite frankly, maybe it's our fault because we've already got something in place and what we're not aggressive with is, you know what, bend if you have to or take the definition of what we have, and we all know what the intent is, but let's get control of a animal that is aggressive towards other domesticated animals. And I don't want -- if I could just get that, quite frankly, I mean you can have 50 people get in a room and talk for six months about well, let's make sure that -- I mean is this dog trouble? Is it aggressive? You know, whatever it is. But I want everyone to understand, and obviously since we have some committee members here today, to take back and say the Commissioner is just looking for what we all know what everybody is looking for. How do we take charge of an animal that we know is a danger. If you can't walk to your mailbox and get your mail, I don't care if it's a chihuahua, I mean somebody needs to be able to take control. And you know what? Dog owners, animal owners, they are kind of like parents. Some parents are lousy parents. And some dog owners are lousy pet owners. And so that's what I want to take control of in here and so I would hope that you all would take that back. [inaudible] I just want everybody to know if they've got any ambiguity with regards to how I feel about it, but I want something done in that respect.
>> let's extend the public comment period until Friday, February 25th at 5:00 p.m. Comments may be submitted in writing or by e-mail to any member of the Commissioners court. And somebody will attend the meeting tonight of the commission. Maybe give us a summary of those comments or provisions unless the commission provides us with that. This will be back to agenda Tuesday, March 8th, 2005, for action. Any other discussion or motion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you all very much for your comments. This is a complicated issue. We're trying to do the right thing.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, February 23, 2005 7:23 AM