Travis County Commissioners Court
February 8, 2005
Item 36
Number 36. Consider and take appropriate action on request to adopt an ordinance requiring owners to restrain certain pets in unincorporated areas of Travis County, and related matters.
>> I think we should indicate up front our intention to discuss this matter today end up with a -- with another revised draft at some point. Hopefully sooner than later. Revised draft for a public hearing, we have additional comejts from the public and -- and at some point after that plan to take action. And I think that we ought to decide after our discussion today when we think the public hearing ought to take place. I did get quite a few e-mails yesterday and very, very late yesterday and -- and to be honest I have not read all of them, but -- but the one that's I did read raised meaningful questions and issues that I think we ought to add at some point. The other thing is that there are two or three legal issues that have surfaced about which we should chat with legal counsel in executive session when we do that this afternoon. So if that is true, then it seems to me that this morning, in my view, what we ought to do first is get staff maybe to lay out significant provisions in the draft before us, then take whatever questions come from the court regarding that. Then we have some residents that will come down. To the extent that we recall significant issues, questions, concerns, raised in e-mails that we received and probably is a good idea to try to discuss those, I have -- I have -- I recall some of those, the one that I recall most of all is at some point we did say, enforcement will be -- will be complaint based. Complaint driven. And the e-mail I got was if that is so, where does that show up in the ordinance and so -- so if we plan to have a provision covering that, I think we ought to discuss that at some time today. But is it -- now, the other things that I did get a couple of comments from -- from persons who indicated that the city of Austin was -- the city of Austin plans to take certain actions, to amend its current leash law. The thinking was if that is so why wouldn't we try to mirror those anticipated changes in ours.
>> I think it's maybe working in the reverse. That working with the city right now on doing this, that we are trying to agree on things that then they will match. We will match.
>> so we think we will end up at the same place.
>> on most terms, yes. There may be a few where we differ, but for the most part, for the ease of the public and the enforcement. We are going to try to get them as close as possible.
>> judge that was discussed related to the complaint driven, where marietta had to land was to make that jive with what the state allows us to put in the ordinance on that particular issue. If I misstated that please let me know. It had to be within the confines of what state law allows us to do on some of these things.
>> maybe give us more volume here.
>> on your mic?
>> it's the speakers.
>> can we lay out the significant provisions in the draft ordinance so those who have not seen the draft ordinance would at least know generally what it's about?
>> okay. I can --
>> now, I did get one e-mail on the -- on some of the significant provisions, the questions were why this, why that. What's the rationale behind it. To the extent that we can provide that, I think it would be helpful, also. But I have in mind, too, that if we can take, say, 15 minutes or so to do the laying out and discussion ourselves, that will give residents plenty of opportunity to provide comments today.
>> I think probably --
>> [indiscernible]
>> I will say that most of the why's could be answered by stating that most of the rules track the state law. And what we are trying to do is organize it, simplify it a little bit. Make everything go together so that we don't have inconsistencies. But most of the provisions that are in here you will find in the state law. There are a few instances where the law allows the county to have more stringent rules, so we have put some things in that we think are better. For the most part you will track most of the language back to the state law, chapters 822 and 826 of the health and safety code.
>> I知 david lurie the director of Austin Travis County health and human services department. As you know the animal services program is conducted through interlocal with the city of Austin and it's within our health and human services department during the -- [indiscernible] is our assistant -- dorinda is our assistant director. I want to reiterate the previous comments. It is in our interests, I think, to develop these ordinances consistently with both the city and the county. We would like to enhance our -- our dangerous dog ordinance activities within the city as well as the county. Of course have the leash laws comparable as well. We really can have consistent enforcement in the city and county. We are looking forward to working this through with you, going back to the city of Austin and making some adjustments there as well, with that I知 going to ask dorinda to outline the recommendations for you.
>> thank you.
>>
>> [one moment please for change in captioners]
>> ...the animals would be taken home. Some of those prom attic things that we do. The law also does require pits to wear their tags when they are off of their property. And that speaks to the identification piece where we want to be able to identify an animal that is is loose or at large so we'll know who it belongs to and where it belongs. The restraint section of the law is where -- yes, sir.
>> so if an animal is, let's say, on the neighbor's property, the neighbor complains about that, then registration won't matter. That will be a violation, right?
>> yes, sir. There would be a violation, if they are off of their property and not either registered or wearing the registration tags, that would be a violation.
>> but what if they are off their property on the neighbor's property but they are registered?
>> then they are violating the leash --
>> then we go to the restraint component. If they are registered and had tags on there would not be a violation of the registration, it would be violation of the restraint law. The requirement for the registration law would allow us to belong where that animal belongs so that we can criteria or take action -- cite or take action with the pet owner.
>> so by being complaint driven, we would not know that the registered pet is on an objecting neighbor's property unless somebody calls that to our attention by filing a complaint.
>> yes, sir.
>> we wouldn't be driving around checking. We don't have the manpower or personpower to drive around just scouting for violations. We would have to receive a complaint; we would go out. Pet on violation property, violation of restraint.
>> registered or not. If it's not registered, it may also violate that section of the law as well.
>> okay. Is that the city leash law today?
>> the city has a pet registration law that requires what we have here except for we don't require the pet to wear the tags in the city law, which is something that I would like to change in that law to match up with this. The city's restraint law is very much like the one we have in here. The one we're proposing. So these two components of the law that we've talked about are pretty much the same in the city and what we're proposing in the county.
>> okay.
>> the next section is the restraint law. And this section requires owners to effectively restrain their dogs so that they are kept on their property. If they are off the property, they are kept on a leash of no greater than six feet in length under the control of a person. You can't just put the leash on the dog and let it run around be dragging its leash. That doesn't count. You have to have the leash six feet and the control. And there would be an exemption for dogs that are in the leash-free parks. There are I believe two in the county and there are 11 or 12 in the city. They would be legal to be off leash in those designated areas, but other than that, if they are off the property, they would need to be on a leash.
>> one of the questions that came up in some of the e-mails is why did we say food and water needs to be provided while they are on their home turf, and we didn't use the word "shelter." some people are raising the question it ought to be there and some people are saying thank you it's not there. I don't think we used the word "shelter." is that correct?
>> where do we get the food and water from?
>> I would think that was coming from the state law, but we may have just missed the shelter component. Food, water and shelter is what we want as a basic care provision for the animals.
>> what does state law say?
>> I don't know that that -- i'll double-check. I don't know that that's in there. I think it was the finding of humane and there is -- I think depending on temperatures, you could say even without the reference to shelter, if it was an extremely hot or extremely cold day, you could use the word "human" and say this is not humane. Now, we can put in shelter if that's the court's desire. I don't think any of those are in the state law. I think these are things that we can address as we want to.
>> may need to put that on a list, judge, in terms of a discussion point of let's see what state law says and then we can go from there.
>> I would recommend that we do have that in there. If there is not anything in there saying it can't be in there, then it's just oversight that it's not.
>> brenda, do we have the ability in these places where you can allow your dog to run free in one of these parks or -- I know there's one i-35 and riverside. I've always been amazed that you go over there and there are 100 dogs and dogs get, you know, pretty aggressive with another dog. What happens if you take your dog into a place like that and another dog attacks your dog there? Is there a method by which, you know, we can take and say, you know, this animal is banned. This and ma cannot come -- animal cannot come into this park area and be off of a leash. Probably won't want the dog in there even if they are on a leash. How do you handle that? There's bound to be people upset about their dog jumped on if you take the dogs into an area.
>> surprisingly we don't have a lot of incidents in the leash-free parks. But we do have some and we respond on a case-by acase basis. Individuals who become upset in these situations will call the appropriate policing -- either a.p.d. Or the sheriffs or us from animal control and we'll go out and assess the situation and see what we need to do with it. We don't have mechanisms in place now to ban a particular animal from the park. What a lot of communities do, and it's something that's one of my goals to get to, what a lot of communities do is they will have a volunteer corps who volunteer to do some self-policing in those parks. They are real effective in those other communities because you have eyes out there kind of watching situations and can intervene, and if an animal is getting overaroused, they can talk to the owners about it. That's what we need to work toward in our parks, I believe, so that we can have some eyes and ears that are watching for situations people might not recognize are going to become a problem. But I haven't seen a lot of issues at the parks that make me say I think we ought to have something heavier or police those more heavily because we just don't have a lot of problems with attacks on people or other animals.
>> well, I just --
>> you can go the dangerous dog route if there is a dog attacking other animals or people.
>> I just want us to make sure we don't leave that area, you know, untouched there, so to speak, because I can see if you go to one of our county parks and you have your dog perhaps on a leash, I mean there so you don't want your dog running too far from your camp site, but you are in one of those parks where animals can be off the leash and all of a sudden a dog comes over and mauls your dog that's on the leash. Perhaps we just go to the dangerous dog rule and say here's what this this is. We need to make sure that dog can't come to the park and be, you know, off of a leash.
>> the dangerous dog section of the law would take care of those kind of cases.
>> okay.
>> once they are declared dangerous they have to be kept in a secure enclosure so they would be no longer allowed to go to someplace like that.
>> something almost similar to what Commissioner Daugherty has brought up, and I知 looking, I guess, as far as area goes, in the rural part of the county, we have persons that still operate farms and they have dogs that help them in their day-to-day operations on the farmland as far as maintaining the animals and things of that nature. How is that going to be addressed as far as working animals that are utilized in the rural part of the county?
>> the way we have written the restraint law, we're asking those individuals to keep the dogs on their property. So if -- like in the one example we heard a few weeks ago, there's a 500-acre ranch. It's pretty hard for the dogs to get off of that property because it's a very large piece of property. But they need to keep the dogs on their property. We don't get specific about how they will do that. So it's up to them to do that. If they've done that through training or they do that through fencing or tethering or there's systems you can buy for animals to train them to stay within perimeters, whatever method they've used to get the animals to the point to stay on their property, the dogs need to stay on their property. They can do their jobs and be working dogs on that property.
>> eus asked that question -- I was asked that question by persons in the community, my precinct, and of course if you are saying that the restraint -- [inaudible] to ensure that particular animal stays on that property is something that they have to achieve.
>> right. And I think that provision of the law where we are not specific about they have to be behind an enclosure or tied up, which many laws -- many restraint laws say very specifically animal must be within a secured fence or tied up on a tethering system of some kind. In this we do leave some room for the working dogs and people in the more rural areas to achieve the intent of the law of keeping the animal on their property in whatever way works for them and their animals.
>> okay. Thank you.
>> we require that the fence be locked. Why is that?
>> that's when we get to the dangerous dog. If you've declared a dog dangerous, you want the enclosure to be locked because you already have decided this is a dangerous dog. You want to limit intrusions that might let the dog out. Like meter readers and things like that or illegitimate by just the neighbor kid coming by.
>> we've defined enclosure --
>> that's for dangerous dogs. The other is restraint. Is what we're talking about on the leash portion. We only get to the secured enclosure if you've had a dog declared dangerous. That's the only time that requirement kicks in.
>> okay. So if there's been a dangerous dog determination, we want the enclosure to be locked to protect outsiders from coming in and the dog from going out.
>> yes. That is the state definition.
>> okay.
>> the third section of the law or the other major change that we're making is to adopt language for determining a dog is dangerous. Significantly different from what we did have in the county regulations. The county regulations required very severe, life-threatening kinds of attacks. What we've done here will allow us to declare a dog dangerous before we get to that vicious stage or a very severe attack. The other thing that this section of the law does is it establishes an administrative hearing process at the local level to declare a dog dangerous so we can do that more expeditiously, and if we have a dangerous animal, get them behind an enclosure more quickly than we have been able to do it under the process where we had to go through the judicial system to have a judge make that declaration. So this will allow us to hold hearings at the administrative law board, our local level. We've delegated that to the health authority to conducts the city hearings now. And I know there was a question about what happens in the likelihood of us having him have to delegate. During the loom five years i've -- almost five years i've been at animal services i've only had to substitute on one case because of a time commitment that became a problem and the people were already there and we didn't want them to send them away. The health authority always has an acting health authority in their absence, so if that individual is on vacation or whatever, there is an acting person to take his place. So we shouldn't have a situation occur where someone in animal control chain of command has to take charge of those hearings. It should stay within the health authority's sphere of influence, which is not within the chain of command of the animal control function.
>> independent review.
>> right. It's independent of the animal control who would be doing the investigation. Animal control function would go out and do the investigation. We have an incident report from someone in the community that's concerned. We conduct an investigation. That will be done within the purview of the animal control function. Then we'll conduct a hearing, and the hearing will be conducted by the health authority or by someone he has delegated to within his organizational structure. His or her.
>> this is probably a good time to ask marietta this question in terms of we did not in this section on dangerous dogs single out specific breeds as being inherently dangerous because of their breed. And I got e-mails saying you should have declared certain breeds in this category and I actually got some e-mails from folks saying thank goodness you didn't do that; that you need to basically prove yourself to be dangerous in being that breed is not inherently so. What does state law say about what we can and can't do about breed-specific regulations?
>> the state law is very specific where it gives the county the authority to be more stringent. It states that you cannot in being more stringent make a breed-specific ruling. That's just something that's not an option. Even if that was something we wanted to do, it's not anything that we're allowed to do under the state law that we're making these rules.
>> that's one of the things that we talked about from the beginning that let's not take something on that a lot of people feel like a pit spwul a dangerous animal, but there are some pit bulls that aren't dangerous. So getting everybody excited that loves pit bulls, I mean, is something that would dog this thing down. But getting this definition of dangerous dog is the most important part of what we've done. And we have severely changed the definition of that. We're certainly moving in the right direction.
>> under the dangerous dog regulation, if a dog is determined to be dangerous, the requirements would be that the dog must be registered on an annual basis with animal control, and we charge a higher level fee for that for the administrative processing, and the main reason for that is to keep up with where the dog is. They have to immediately be restrained behind a secure enclosure. That's where we get to that definition of secure enclosure. They have to obtain $100,000 in liability insurance. They have to comply with the reporting process. So if they give the dog or rehome the dog or give the dog or sell it, they have to notify us. If they move they have to notify us within a certain period of time. Again, that's so we know where the dog physically is and we can check that enclosure and make sure the dog is secured properly. And then this law we're also asking that the dog have a microchip implanted in it, and that can be done at their own veterinarian and they can pay the cost to be done there, or we can do it at the shelter for a $15 fee, which is just the cost of the chip and the cost of the insertion of the microchip. That enables us to permanently identify the animal because it's a microchip that's embedded between the shoulder blades. It stays for the rest of the life of the animal. It can be picked up with a scanning device so that if the dog does escape, bites someone else, gets involved in another incident, there will not be a question about whether that is the dog that we declared dangerous. That's a very powerful part of this law and that is another item that we're going to want to see change odd the city side to be more proactive in how we're handling dangerous dog kaoeusz the city side.
>> do you have any complaint that that's too invasive or pet people will go, well, that's not medically something that should happen to an animal or is there just enough proof that there is absolutely no reason why you should have any problem with implanting a --
>> it's a very common procedure. We're seeing more and more animals having a microchip implanted for purposes of identification. Because if your dog gets lost, the color comes off, ta bgs get ripped off, you still have something that will guarantee that you get your animal home. You can register them in your local database like we have at our shelter, and you can also register in national databases so if you lose your animal in arkansas or new mexico, whenever, when you are traveling, you will get that animal back. It's becoming more and more popular. We push it. We microchip every animal that leaves the shelter through our placement program, and then we offer every person that reclaims their lost animal, we offer them that microchip at $15 to try to encourage to get more of those Texas microchips out in the community. I do get a handful of complaints that there are fears it's going to be used for satellite track to go keep up with where people are and things like that, but it's not used to do that. There's a lot of people that wish it was. That I could call up a satellite at my office and say there's are where your lost dog is running down on riverside or whatever. But other than a few complaints about the whole concept of implants, the procedure itself is widely accepted and is very popular in the pet owners.
>> it would be the black labrador theory.
>> the microchip only comes into play after a finding of dangerous dog.
>> the way we've written this, it would only be when they were declared dangerous we would force that to have to happen. A lot of communities have laws like this for bite cases so that if a dog has ever been involved in a bite case, they have to have a microchip implanted. That way you can track repeat bites. I had a dog at the shelter at one time that was -- a generic color that you would never be able to recognize a hundreds of that breed and we had three separate bite cases on that dog, and the people involved just kept changing the name and registering it in the pet registration database as a new dog and still were behaving irrelevant responsibly with it and had three bad bites from this dog. And I finally get them to microchip that dog by convincing them it would be good since he was always escaping. But it is a very powerful way to help us with protecting the community when we have a dog that has a known problem.
>> so what do we do if an owner says after a declaration that this dog is dangerous, i'll comply with all the other provisions, but I will not do the microchip? What do we do then?
>> well, if we have it in the law, they wouldn't have an option and we would have to use whatever means we had to to get possession of the dog and do that procedure.
>> so you think we have the authority to take the dog and do the microchip ourselves?
>> I think so.
>> well, their other option is to surrender the dog. If they don't meet the requirements, you know, if your dog is declared dangerous, you have two choices. You meet the requirements or you surrender the dog.
>> so if an owner doesn't do either of those two, what enforcement authority do we have?
>> we can pick up the dog and if necessary we can get a court order. Depending on where the dog is and how cooperative the owner is. There would be a process to go through.
>> and we have done that. We have done that with the requirements we have now.
>> I know we hope not to get there, but it helps to know. What we want to do really is we would pick up the dog without a court order. But we would not install the microchip until we got a court order. Is that what I知 hearing?
>> the -- they would need to comply with all the requirements of the dangerous dog law or sure surrender the dog or move to another jurisdiction would be the third option.
>> it's the insurance, the tags, the registration, the rabies, the secured enclosure, and the microchip. All of those things.
>> the whole package has to be done.
>> they've got 30 days or give the dog up.
>> and if not, then we have to go get a court order, seize the dog and we won't release the dog then until those requirements are met.
>> our first step is the court order.
>> yes.
>> not seizure.
>> if someone doesn't voluntarily turn the dog over. Or if the dog is loose, off the property, we can pick it up. The dog is in the house, we would --
>> I have in mind just a -- what we call a natural-born texan who says I have a right to keep my dog and all this other stuff is reasonable, but this microchip, I don't believe in it, never have and never will and I知 not doing it. We would then -- we would go to court before we took any enforcement action beyond --
>> if he has the dog in the house, yes. If the dog were loose, we could pick it up and hold it until requirements are met. Or it's the decision of the court to make that part optional. The court could make that an optional --
>> what's in the draft ordinance?
>> in the draft ordinance we're requiring it.
>> it's required.
>> and I would recommend to you that you keep it in. We will have some cases, probably very few, where people do protest that particular component for whatever reasons. However, the dogs aren't identifiable unless we people choose to identify them. If we choose not to keeping tags and collars on them we don't know who a dog is. So if you have a dangerous dog and it gets out of its yard and it's not identified, then we have this risk that we're exposing everybody to, and we really don't know that because the dog doesn't have any identification on it. The idea behind the microchip is that they are permanently identified so the generic black lab, the generic white pyrenees, those dogs that don't have markings that might make them distinctive that we could record in our database, we have a way to identify them as a dog that has been declared dangerous. So I think it is a value to us to have that in the law from a public safety perspective.
>> a dangerous dog declaration comes from the health authority.
>> yes, sir.
>> that would be an order that says I hereby find your dog to be a dangerous dog and I order that you comply with the following standards, and you pull them from the ordinance, basically.
>> yes, sir.
>> well, why wouldn't the health authority also say failure to comply with these steps will result in whatever authority there is. Based on what you are telling me, the authority should be if you go to court with a health authority order, you are in good shape to get a judge to order basically whatever you are asking, right? If you go it will be that the owner has refused to follow the health authority's order and you are asking a higher authority to put other steps in place, authorize seizure of the dog, putting the microchip in ourselves or whatever other steps are necessary, right?
>> yes, sir.
>> why wouldn't that be in the ordinance, I guess?
>> there's section c of this is failure to comply. Where you have any person can make that complaint that is an owner has a dog that's been declared dangerous and they are not complying. Say they come to us and say he's microchiped, he's in the registration, he's in the secured enclosure. So he doesn't keep the dog in the secured enclosure. He's got one, he's shown it to us so we've given back the dog. Then he fails to keep the dog there. He doesn't get the dog registered the second year as he is required to do. Failure to comply, you go under that process then.
>> where's the authority for us to go to court and get the health authority's order enforced?
>> that's the part that it's a misdemeanor to violate this.
>> okay.
>> okay. So that was the dangerous dog component. We talked about the requirement --
>> maybe just to add to that, judge, beyond the health authority's, you know, sort of administrative decision-making process, there is a right to appeal that decision. So, in other words, the owner can appeal to a court the health authority's decision to do so within 15 days.
>> we do have provisions for failure to comply so we can take care of those issues. And then we have a final section that is dogs causing death or serious bodily injury to a person, which is the process laid out under state law that we've always had in place. So there's really no change in that.
>> well, it may not be in there, but we certainly have changed all the provocation stuff, which was the other big thing that we had going against us. Right, brenda? With regards to, I mean, what is considered provocation, we're trying to pull a dog off of your dog, we got that kind of cleared up that that is sort of a are you kidding?
>> that's related to the dangerous dog o the serious bodily injury or death, pror indication or location doesn't matter. And again, that's state law. So if you have an injury that reaches that level of serious bodily injury, and that's defined in the statistic statute, or death, the provocation doesn't matter, the reason doesn't matter. It can be unprovoked in your house and still this provision is going to kick in. But we did define provocation for dangerous dogs.
>> and what we've done is we've added a component in where we're going to declare dogs dangerous, but we still have the state law that says these things are going to happen when death or serious bodily injury is caused. That's the same as it has been under the state law, so we've added a new thing we want to do before that happens. Before we get to a point of death or bodily injury, we have a set of laws now that are going to help us prevent death and bodily injury from happening. But if it does, then those provisions would kick in as they are under the state law. And we've had that -- we've had that in there.
>> that's what we've had in place and it was such a high level that you had to reach that we didn't have anything that we could use prior to that. So this is just leaving that, but giving us something prior to this type of action.
>> well, in the hypothetical that we discussed before where a person arrives home, there's a dog in the yard sort of between the automobile and the door, and the owner tries to shoo the dog out of his yard so he can enter his house, that shooing is not provocation.
>> no, the shhooing would not be provocation.
>> and the dog would be in violation --
>> of the leash law.
>> by being on the resident's property.
>> very obviously, without the dog is having behaved aggressively or done anything, it's in violation by being off of its property. So immediately we can take care of that. It may or may not be registered. So what we would do is we would handle that incident by saying, first of all, there's a violation because the dog is off its property. Then we would check to see if the dog is registered. If the dog is not registered, there would be a violation for the dog not being registered. We would write citations for both of those situations. And try to get the owner into compliance either by letting the court fine them a lot of money or by having them attend our responsible pet owner's class, learn more about responsible pet ownership and start behaving better in the future. If that dog was engaging in aggressive actions, growling, barking, running at you or aggressive types of behaviors, then you could file -- file a an affidavit and we would conduct a dangerous dog investigation into that dog. We might solve the problem by getting the dog back on its property. But if there's aggressive tendencies that might mean this dog is dangerous, we have the dangerous dog we could go to and conduct an investigation and see where that leads us.
>> kind of like getting stopped for speeding. They are going to check if you've got your insurance, see if your car is registered so you can pick up as many or as few as you need to to solve the problem.
>> and you back talk to the trooper.
>> okay.
>> I think it's the major components of the changes that we made, I think the rest of the things in the document are -- because we're repealing the entire regulation where we've got to restate those other sections. And the other thing, judge, that you had asked me for because to get some feedback from the veteranarians. I can give you an update on that. There are 21 veteranarians in Travis County. Of those 21, there are 13 already participating in the city of Austin pet registration program. Of the eight remaining veteranarians, four said that they would sign on to the program. And two said probably or maybe. And the other two we haven't been able to get a response back from the veterinarian. So it sounds like we would have good support from the veterinary community in Travis County for the pet registration component of this.
>> we talked about in terms of that's certainly a very good time to get the registration to occur is in that interaction with the vet their 81. Has there also been thought rolling it out more customer friendly? You always have pet owners going to petco and other places that there might be some other retail places you could wind up getting that registration as well?
>> I have it on my list. It's something we need some resources to be able to do. The pet registration program is not resource intensive because we do have the veteranarians already seeing the animals helping us out and they do receive a dollar for each tag they sell. And then it comes into us, gets entered into our database with the existing staff that we have. So some of those other things are going to take more effort on our part to get them implemented. But i've been looking into programs like that, being able to do them on the web, that kind of thing. And we do now send out reminder cards to everybody so they know it's coming up, that they need to get their pet registration done. We remind them of who the last veterinarian was they saw in case they forgot. The law recently changed for rabies where rabies vaccinations can be every three years so that has opened up a window where animals might not be seen for their annual wellness check as much because the rabies is not a requirement, but we want to encourage them to get in for their annual wellness check and get their pet registration on an annual basis to keep our database as current as we can with addresses and phone numbers to get people's pets back to them. The reminders that we send out, some people will just mail it back to us. They will mail us a copy of their rabies certificate and we mail them back the tag. So we're trying to be more customer friendly with that to the degree we can.
>> there's always spaying and neutering clinics and if we're going to start something new in the county we ought to think about special outreaches out there to make it easy in case you are in between veterinarian visits or something that would fit into your financial situation to go ahead and get the registration to occur.
>> as a part of ruling this out we definitely want to do those outreach programs. In city of Austin neighborhood, in low-income neighborhoods we do free rabies vaccination and pet registration to try to get more animals registered and vaccinated but give us an opportunity to talk about wellness care, cruelty prevention, sterilization, those kinds of issues. They come to see us to get a service they need and we can talk to them about other issues. We definitely wanted to find ways to do those kinds of programs in the county so that a lot of these issues people can get education that's very specific to their questions and what they need to know, and that will be a way for us to get more pets registered out there as well. Then we also want to look at how we can get resources to do resterilizations in some of these neighborhoods that are economically depressed so we can get more pets fixed. A significant component of bite reduction is always less roaming animals. Animals that are fixed are less likely to roam so we're going to want to pay attention to that as well as implementing these laws, we want to pay attention to those other things that impact animals being loose and out running around in neighborhoods.
>> what does the law say exactly as far as [inaudible] is concerned, also the public process for [inaudible] and after the public process have been concluded as far as public security is concerned. And the court decides to adopt this ordinance, when will that basically, according to state statute, go into effect?
>> I think the statute specifies that. I don't think the statute specifies. I think it would be up to the court to determine their effective date.
>> so any day that we determine for it to go into effect would be the date that it would happen.
>> uh-huh. And we would also -- whatever date the court chooses to make it effective, we would also, on the enforcement side, we would be writing a lot of warnings. We wouldn't go out there and just start writing citations. Citations are a way to get people to pay attention to the issues. That's really what we want is people to pay attention to the issues. We're not out there just to generate fees to be going somewhere. We really want to get the problem solved. So during our implementation phase, we would be trying to do a lot of meeting with neighborhood associations. I've already started doing some of that myself. We would be utilizing churches, neighborhood groups, boy scouts, girl scouts, any of those kinds of venues that would either distribute materials or listen to us to go out and talk about these changes, and then for a reasonable period of time we would be issuing a lot of warnings rather than actual citations because we would want to give people a fair opportunity to understand what the law is and get into compliance. On the other hand, if it was a situation that was dangerous, you can't get in your door, you can't get to your mailbox, those we're going to have to deal with and we would be able to pick up those animals immediately.
>> okay. Thank you.
>> one resident wants to know why we started talking about coyotes on page 9.
>> that's a part of the state statute.
>> okay. So we would --
>> just including that. Whether it's in ours or not.
>> I know, but --
>> I think as far as letting people know and be advised of what's there. It will be in effect in the state statute whether it's in our ordinance or not, but what we did with this was to go through the state statute and make reference to each portion and how we were addressing it.
>> you got the e-mail about the -- some sort of state fund.
>> yes, sir.
>> and that person wants to know why we are using 822 instead of 826.
>> and I think i'll let marietta answer that one.
>> and tie into some sort of state funding.
>> there's two statutes that allow you to put in registration and restraint laws. One requires a county-wide election. One doesn't. The one that requires the county-wide election has some different provisions in it. This court is going under the one that does not require a county-wide election. And the provision that this citizen asked about were a portion of the fees and fines went to reimburse damages is in the section that calls for a county-wide election, so that's not available to us. The section that we're using says that the fees go to the county to use on the program.
>> we chose 822 because it does not require a county-wide election.
>> yes.
>> I just want to say again thank you publicly to derenda and david for the cooperation and collaboration we've gotten from the city of Austin on this has been wonderful. And I just want to say thank you again and I appreciate the fact we're trying to do this one time, but the changes that we're doing, even though we are going first, we have every intent of taking these to the city of Austin and I want to say publicly thank you you both and your staff. It's been a very good staff.
>> thank you, and liz mentioned that the county staff and county attorneys have been very helpful. This has been an easy thing for us to get to.
>> thank you.
>> let's hear from some residents. We probably need one of you all to stay close by. Good morning.
>> good morning. My name is judy griggsby, I live in the foot hills of Barton Creek and was the victim of a vicious attack against my dog by another dog that resulted in her death. I only received this draft proposal yesterday, but I had a few things that I wanted to ask questions about. I知 assuming this is the appropriate venue.
>> okay.
>> the first thing is, under the definitions on page 2, under dangerous dog, I would request that the county include a definition for provocation in this list of definitions. Since that has been an issue before.
>> I think the one that's there is --
>> I didn't see a definition for provocation. Oh, okay. Great. That's fine. The secure enclosure, it says a dangerous dog means a dog that makes an attack aor commits an act or acts within -- without provocation at a place other than a secure enclosure. I would request that perhaps attacks that happen in a home be taken on a case-by-case basis. I知 thinking of somebody who walks into someone's home, somebody leaves their front door unlocked, someone walks into their home and gets bit by a dog. I知 wondering if that's a fair -- if it would be fair to define that dog as a dangerous dog. If it's something they don't know and they just walk in. At the same time, I知 very concerned about the incident that I heard where these two little girls were at their grandfather's and were attacked in his living room by these two rottweilers and he did not want to get rid of the dogs. I don't know if that's going to raise issue.
>> serious injury, then it goes to the other provision.
>> right. Okay. So that was just something that raised a question for me. Under -- on page 3 under serious bodily injury, I would request that on the third line that the wording be changed -- either be changed to or would require hospitalization or be changed to and may require hospitalization. It seems that that is -- hospitalization is included as a requirement and I知 not sure that that's entirely appropriate. Unless hospitalization can be just a trip to the hospital.
>> it says regardless, -- without regard to whether they actually go.
>> right.
>> so they don't actually have had to have gone to the hospital.
>> okay.
>> what provision is that?
>> it's under the definition. Without regard to whether they go.
>> okay. Okay.
>> judy, were you wanting to know the word or because and always come up. And I think the explanation you just gave pretty much takes care of that.
>> yeah, I知 okay with that. I don't think it's as clear, but that's okay. I can go with that. Under the registration, would it be feasible for a microchip to -- since a microchip is embedded in the pet, would that be feasible for it to eliminate the need for a yearly registration? Or is the yearly registration still required even if you have a microchip? Like if somebody just doesn't have a dangerous dog, they just voluntarily put the microchip in.
>> the way this is written, an annual registration would still be required because what the registration does is updates our database.
>> okay.
>> and the biggest issue for us is want to go have accurate information about where the animals are living. Even if they are not dangerous, if they get lost and we're trying to get them back to you, we need current information where you live. As much as I知 a supporters of the microchip, for the lifetime of the pet, you think you've done it. But you move, your phone number changes, you get rid of your land line, get cell phones, all those changes impact our ability to get pets back home. So the importance of the annual registration is that updating of the database.
>> okay. On page 4, dogs seized -- again, I知 not an attorney so I may be confused about the wording of this, but it says dogs seized only because they are unretrained. It appears that they get three days or until the owner retrieves the dog before the city of Austin takes over. And in letter b, a dog seized and determined to be a dangerous dog gets 30 days before --
>> because we want under the restraint thing the main thing is get in touch with the owners, have them fined, get the dog out of the impound and restrain the dog. The 30 days is to allow, once a determination is made that you use up to 30 days because that's how long they have to fulfill those requirements. Insurance, secured enclosure, all of that.
>> this allows us to hold the dog in the shelter until the requirements have been met and we can release the dog back to an environment where it can be restrained.
>> appropriately.
>> appropriately. So it gives us the power to hold the dog until those things have been taken care of so we're not releing the dog into a situation that's going to be dangerous for people.
>> my concern is for a dog that gets out and its owners are out of town, they only have three days before it can be turned over and treated as an abandoned pelt. Three days doesn't seem like very long.
>> if the dog is registered and there's tags --
>> how we deal with this is the city of Austin ordinance is the same as this. It has a mandatory three days. We at the shelter have to make a decision on all the animals we have in the shelter. There are some animals that very obviously no one is going to come for them and they may be completely covered in mange, you can tell these animals have been neglected and no one is going to come for them. We don't want to hold those animals for more than three days, it's not humane, and they will be taking up space for an animal we can get back home. In the shelter we have hold times for like the animals that are registered, we give them a 10-day hold. Animals that have collars and tags, even though the tags aren't current, we're going to give them five or so days and keep working on those. So every day we have to go through a process to decide of the 100 or so animals we have to decide for today, what's the best out come for that animal. Should we hold them longer or not. And we have the flexibility within the shelter to be able to do that. And so we consider each animal on an individual basis. We have to hold them the three days, but once we get to the end of the three days, then we can decide what's best for that individual animal. And we'll have some that we hold beyond the 10 days because we're just sure that there's an owner and, for example, it may be right around christmas where we know there's a lot of two-week vacations going on so we may hold them 12 or 14 days because we're very sure this dog or cat has an owner somewhere. But if you put those provisions into the law, then we lose our flexibility to manage for the overall best out come that get get for all the animals.
>> on page 5, I believe this is my last thing. On page 5 under d, other requirements, I知 assuming that, number 1, any damage done by a dog or cat requires the owner to make compensation. I don't see that that's written in there, but in fact that should be there. There doesn't seem to be a consequence. Does that make sense?
>> I知 going to have to check and see. Other than a fine, I don't know. So I will check on that.
>> okay.
>> check to see if we have the authority to do that. Can I go back to another? Just before this last one about the three days or until the owner retrieves the dog after paying fees or fines, if we conclude the owner is not coming in to retrieve the dog or pay the fees and fines, what does the city do?
>> well, at the end of the three-day hold period, we will evaluate the dog and make a decision about whether we can place them in one of our placement programs, whether we'll have the youth nice them or whether we'll have to hold them for additional time to see if an owner does come forward.
>> if we give up on the owner, either we put the dog up for adoption or euthanize them.
>> yes.
>> this is my last thing. On page 8, under destruction, right at the top, it seems to conflict with what you have on page 4. Under 3-a and b at the top. One allows for 11-daytime period. The other is a 30-daytime period. This doesn't seem to go together.
>> one has to do with restraint, one has to do with dangerous dogs.
>> you are right. I知 sorry.
>> that's why you have it split up in these sections.
>> okay.
>> it's confusing. As I said, i've only gotten to go through it once so -- okay. I really appreciate as well I just want to thank you for all the work you've done and I know it's been a lot of time and energy that's gone into it and I feel like we've got something that now is hope physically enforceable. My only other question is will we have the manpower to enforce this.
>> we are --
>> we will.
>> we will.
>> I知 going to hold you to that.
>> we really are. I have requested some additional resources, but we're also going to merge the city and county program. We're going the redistribute our resources based on demand within geographic locations rather than based on artificial jurisdictions which don't necessarily match up with service needs. So we will manipulate our resources in a way that's going to provide significantly better service. We're already working on that assuming that there is going to be a change so we're already working on the things we need to do to be ready to do our business differently to give you better service in the county, and I think you will be pleased with that. We're still going to need a lot of help from the community. We need that in the city. The solution to animals can't come from animal cops driving around and making everybody do the right thing. We're going to need a lot of help from the community, and the kind of support we've had in going through this process to get the word out, to get as much voluntary compliance as possible is going to be real important.
>> right. I did remember one last thing. On page 8, this is under the dangerous dog, d-2, attacked by a dangerous dog. D-2 indicates that this statute is applying only to attacks on a person. Then it says if the attack is against a livestock dome sometime animals or foul the complaint shall be registered and after three such attacks the dog shall be surrendered to asca. Does that declare that a dangerous dog? That would mean four attacks. I知 thinking if you've got a dangerous dog, two attacks ought to be all that's required.
>> that's a policy decision. This is something that we're putting in under our ability to be more stringent. We can't make something a misdemeanor so that's why we had to limit that part of it. But we can -- this other was a procedure to put in to handle those attacks that are on other animals so the court can make a decision on how many --
>> recommendations that the three ought to include the attack that resulted in the --
>> dangerous dog declaration. At the very least. And once a dog is declared dangerous, I think a subsequent attack, even one, should be all that's necessary. Because it's pretty sure the owner the not able to keep the dog properly restrained.
>> I mean, as a matter of fact, it would just take one, as far as I知 concerned. That's really how you take care of this. But marietta, what would we have to do?
>> we can make that change if that's the court's direction. I don't know if direnda has any input. This was just a draft proposal that we at least have something in place since we can't make it a misdemeanor, since we've added to the dangerous dog to include attacks on animals. That's something the county has added. Then we wanted to add a procedure to deal with that. So that procedure is up to the court.
>> let's consider that.
>> good suggestion.
>> thank you.
>> thank you very much. Appreciate it.
>> anybody else? Don't be shy. We've got four chairs there. It would help us if we could get two or three people to come forward at this time.
>> my name is jim von walsky, neither a dog lover or hater. I think I almost want to pack my bags and go home. I talked to jack bishop who last time said look, we have dangerous dogs, pit bulls in particular. He was the one that went to the city. The city is not leading this effort here, the county is, and now the city is trying to play catchup. I have a lot of objections how the city does thing, particularly medical care for dogs that are injured. That treatment is taken out of the dog registration fees. Certainly if your dog is injured, you ought to pony up or else put the dog to sleep. No matter whose responsibility. It's certainly not the city's responsibility. The other issue is that on this first -- when this first convened, the consensus came from one of the members that we need a leash law and that's pretty much it, that's where it's going. All the testimony has been it's a concern over these dogs which are running free and aggressive or that virtually run free and aggressive. I don't understand why the jurisdiction puts up with a dangerous dog. Even in a junkyard consideration where they are trying to protect their junk vehicles, those people realize what video cams and the liability of having a dangerous dog in there that it's imprudent to do so. I think also that this -- the dog is presumed benign and friendly until proven to be dangerous. You have the whole thrust of this thing here is now the administrative proof -- burden of proof to prove he's dangerous. Okay, we're going to chip this dog. Here you are walking down the street, the dog comes out, woof, woof, what are you going to do, scan him? I think you ought to notch his year. First offense, second, third time he's out of the game, gets euthanized. Because people don't know. That's the prevailing fear. You don't know whether that dangerous or not. What are we going to do, check court records? So you can't get people to buy car insurance. How are you going to get them to buy dog insurance. And the people who have those vicious dogs, they are kind of mean bullies theplgs. They take them to the park and say I think i'll take bully dog down here and see how much butt he can kick. They will say sick 'em. Who provokes the fight? The big dog, the little dog? I知 against bad dogs, period, got zero tolerance for them and almost zero tolerance for people who even encourage that sort of thing. I think it's a personality defect. So now we have just -- just recently the surprise introduction of what's called a vicious dog. The standards were the dog is okay until he is deemed dangerous. Deeming him dangerous -- and there was no other distinction. I think there should be distinctionss, grades. You have, for instance, a menace-type dog, a dangerous dog, an aggressive dog or a vicious dog. Or you can just say they are dangerous dogs rated 1, 2, 3, class a, b, c felony. Because it's not that clear. That's a gray line there. And how bad is that dog. And the worst that dog is, the less tolerant we should be with him. What makes a dog bad. Is it blood line? And ability to do harm? Who taught him to be mean. And certainly a toothless chihuahua, he thinks he is tough, but he's not tough and he's not going to hurt anyone. So I think in one scenario too is provocation. Here's a dog in a fence, here come some kids, they know if they go woof, woof, is that provocation? Say well, that dog is provoked. It's my dog, it's my right. I love the dog. He never hurt anybody. Not true. So much of the discussion, much of everything here is finding blame. I think we're tying up way too much time and legislation trying to find blame when the dog just ought to be taken out of circulation quickly, summarily. They can go get a new dog if they want, but the citizens don't want broad-brushed leash law. That's not what the testimony was the last three times. What they certainly want are quick and decisive response to dogs that threaten them. And I think this whole -- this whole code here is going contra to that. Taken attorney here is crafting language which basically skirts around what the citizens want. And it's much ado over nothing here when we are avoiding the problem. And I don't understand at all what the wisdom was of the state legislature saying that you cannot deem certain animals dangerous. You know, it's not a human rights issue. They are dangerous. Don't kid yourself. I bet if you looked at every dog attack, they said, well, black labs have attacked more people than pit bulls. Yeah, they outnumber pit bulls 10 or 20 to one t reality is the dog is either pit bull or half-breed pit bull. And to deny and -- namby-pamby around with the state legislators and go back and say why did you do that, is there any reasonable -- what's the rationality. It's an unreasonable law. So thank you. Jack bishop is throwing in the towel. I知 not going to. But I certainly think that it needs to be stiffened up and there needs to be a visual indicator. We know that dog is bad. Gets two notches. You know, don't even go near him. Thank you.
>>
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>>
>> we could add an alternative in there, the comment that I would make is that microchips are technology that you can use a scanner, you can get the information. Tattoos through not standardization -- there's not standardization so you might have a tattoo that looks this way in our community and when that dog moves to another community, that tattoo doesn't have meaning. That's kind of the challenge with tattoos is some may have their protocol for how they do tattoos, but there's not a standard nationwide. Where the microchip is and that dog would be permanently identified for the rest of its life no matter where it is, they will know who that dog is just becalling us or calling on the national data base.
>> I think the dangerous dog problem is a matter of human error. Irresponsible dog ownership is resulting in abused and abandoned animals, [indiscernible] am I correct?
>> annually, 50%, about 50% of the dogs and cats.
>> and also I think that any dog, regardless of the breed, placed in the hands of a potentially dangerous, irresponsible owner, they become a lethal killer. Abandoned and abused animals results in aggressive and dangerous animals, also true in humans as well. We have to understand choices of dog owners put in peril others. It continues to every animal they acquire. What I think should be done is education and enforcement and responsible dog ownership, we need to teach our children to respect and not abuse animals through play as well as basic safety around dogs. This is also responsible parenting. I believe that more than half of dog fights and fatalities involve children.
>> I don't have those statistics with me.
>> I think that mandatory licensing for breeders and mandatory spay and neutering for anyone who does not have a license. More than 80% of biters are male dogs, not neutered. I also think that -- that we need tougher penalties for neglect owners -- negligent owners. People with three attacks should lose the right to own dogs of the target for increased education, enforcement of already existing laws. This would help to minimize costs and put money where it would make a difference. In enforcing responsible dog ownership. I think that the mistreatment of animals should be taken seriously. Also, about the county-wide leash law, is there going to be increased housing at town lake for the an halls that are brought in? -- animals that are brought in?
>> no, the shelter has a fixed capacity. We do have need to give problem animals out of the situation that's occurring. But we don't go into it thinking that the objective is to go out and pick up massive numbers of animals, the objective is to get as much voluntary compliance as possible through education to get people to have a good understanding of responsible pet ownership and the responsibilities they have to the community around them and do as much as we can to keep the animal in place but get the people behaving more responsibly. So we are not going to implement this by going out to pick up as many animals as possible. There will be an increase in intake, I would suspect, and there may be a need for that. There are animals out there that are marginally owned and unowned the more humane thing would be to get them off of the streets before they are hit and dying through coyote tack, cars, bad means. There will be some of that we are going to feed to do. What we are -- we need to do. What we are trying to get to is a more responsible community, not more animals in the shelter. That's not the objective in how to implement this.
>> right. But with the leash law being expanded more animals will be picked up. Every time that I have been to town lake, they are full. They are not full. Seems to be much more room for more animals.
>> if we respond to complaints, I see an increased number of complaints, but not a flood of them. There are neighbors who have such an understanding that the neighbors being on the property is not a big deal. He they don't complain to us, I don't see us having enough manpower just to patrol, so to a great extent like you say public education is important and we depend on voluntary compliance. Even now I think the level of voluntary compliance is great. The enforcements of standards may be confused and enforcement action, I hope that we will clear that up. I think if we do that it will be a big step in the right direction.
>> as far as determining aggressive dogs, I am afraid that -- that there will be false claims with people who leave that -- believe that certain breeds are dangerous. And by thinking that certain breeds are dangerous will be more inclined to file a complaint, maybe even lying regarding something like this against someone's dog. I was a little concerned and -- if there would be expert dog behavioralists to determine if the dog is dangerous.
>> that's why we have an investigation process is, you know, people could make false accusations about anything, it's our job to do a level of investigation that is going to get to the facts of what actually happened. And we are going to use whatever resources that we need to be able to conduct that investigation to get a true picture of what's really happening with this animal. We are going to set -- because we are changing this law, the previous law in the county as well as the city's required an act to have happened, an attack has happened because we are going to try to look at animals before the attack actually takes place, we are going to have to change our standards and how we do investigations as well as conduct the hearings. And we will have that standardized and we will use the -- the expert -- experts that are available, whether those are behaviors, veterinarians, whatever. We are going to use, that will be built into it as well. We are doing some research right now with other communities that already have laws like this to see what they have done with their standards for the dangerous determinations. And we will have that concluded before you take action on this, we should have our standard set up so that we have a very standardized process that we are going to go through.
>> and when a complaint is registered, the person is going to have to sign a sworn statement. I think a lot of people will be less, if you are just -- if we were just going on somebody picking up the phone and going fluffy is mean, go get him, but this person has got to have a sworn statement that they are willing to sign, put their name on, and swear that it's true and it's going to have to say what happened. But if you have some protection there, somebody that's just registering false and frivolous accounts, they have signed a sworn statement, then you have some other issues to deal with towards the person who has done that.
>> that's what we experience now. With just everyday bite cases, there needs to be a signed statement about you know who the biting dog was. People are not frivolous with that, because it is a legal document that they have sworn as the truth and is done under a notary seal, so that helps. And our investigators have to deal with these situations all the time. So they are used to investigating and getting to the bottom of what's happened.
>> for me that's about it. I just wanted to -- I wanted to stress that the way these dogs are raised and their treatment, does result if their behavior. When you have abandoned dogs running loose starving unsocialized they are going to become aggressive. And the leash law isn't really treating the root of the problem. And I feel there's something needs to be done about that.
>> we are trying to focus on the conduct of the dog owner, right? So we are trying to help the dog owner do better. And most of these real strict enforcement provisions don't kick in until the owner has been given some opportunity to do the right thing. But I think that if we put clear standards in place, indicate our intention to take appropriate enforcement action, have a public education period, and I do think that at some point we ought to really focus on that, then hopefully we can just do -- we will have better dog owners and better pets as a result.
>> right.
>> okay. Well, that's it.
>> we hear you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you. Yes, ma'am?
>> thank you, judge. My name is pat valles days, I知 a member of the advisory commission, even though some of my remarks may coincide with the animal advisory commission, I will mostly be speaking just representing myself. I will try to let you know if and when I do say something that is -- that is part of the animal advisory commission recommendations. My first comment, speaking on behalf of myself, is that the earlier discussion about the secure enclosure only applying to dogs who were already declared dangerous, I would like you to read the definition of dangerous dog very carefully and read the definition of secure enclosure very carefully. Because the way I read it, my dog can be declared dangerous if my home is not locked.
>> no. Now the secure enclosure requirement only kicks in after a dog is declared dangerous.
>> well, this says that a dangerous dog, that the definition of dangerous dog says that a dangerous dog is a dog who attacks someone.
>> outside the property, outside of the home.
>> so the scenario that I知 worried about is a pizza guy comes to my door, I don't answer my door right away. Walks into my house, my dog not even -- doesn't even have to bite the pizza guy, can just scare him, my dog under definition of dangerous dog is a dangerous dog. Says dangerous dog means a dog that makes an attack or commits an act without provocation in a place other than a secure enclosure. If my house is not locked, you have to find a secure enclosure, you say a secure enclosure is locked. Furthermore --
>> the -- what provision did you just read?
>> I was read in this the definitions 52003 f. It says dangerous dog means a dog that makes an attack or commits an act with or without provocation in a place other than a secure enclosure. If my home is not locked, it is not a secure enclosure. If my back yard is not locked, it is not a secure enclosure. If my dog causes fear in someone -- and someone walked into my unlocked house or unlocked back yard, my dog could be a dangerous dog. I support you doing things about dangerous dogs, but I want to be sure that when a -- when a dog is declared a dangerous dog that dog did more than just scare someone and I want to be sure that if my home is not locked and my dog bites an intruder or bites someone that walks into my house, you know, there may be something that needs to be done as a result of that. But I don't think the -- declaring my dog a dangerous dog is the right thing to do at this point.
>> thank you.
>> the next provision that I would like to talk about is the one that allows for fees to be waived on a case-by-case basis. I support you waving fees if someone takes a class. Waiving fees. However I would like it not to be done on a case-by-case basis. I would like if you feel the need to separate criteria for who gets their fees and not waived and waived that's fine. But once you set that it should not be on a case-by-case basis. For example, if I am stopped by a police officer for not having a valid registration, I am told that if I take a defensive driving class or if I do certain things by a certain date, I qualify to have my fee waived. I have taken advantage of that provision and I知 glad that it wasn't up to the police officer to decide, you know, whether or not I could have that. It was just written into the law that if you meet certain requirements, your fee can be waived. If you do a defensive driving class. And I would like that to be true for -- for anyone as opposed to having it be done on a case-by-case basis.
>> what provision is that?
>> 52002 c 5.
>> okay.
>> judge, do you have any comernts -- do you have any comment on that?
>> the only comment that I would make is the waving of the fees related to material sterilization, we do that all the time. If someone will do that, we waive all of the fees. The responsible pet owners class, we sometimes encounter a situation where we feel like we are not going to get any compliance and that offering the class might not be in the interest of public safety. That the fine or the fees may be the kind of hammer that's needed to get some attention and get the situation corrected. But those don't happen very often, so if you wanted to put language in that says we will always offer the -- the responsible pet owner's class to first offenders and we will always waive fees if they will get a sterilization, that wouldn't be very bothersome to us. There are occasionally situations where we think the first offenders course is not going to get us where we need to go with someone and that the fines or fees are the heavier level of enforcement is important to get -- to getting compliance but those don't happen a lot.
>> again, if you have experience with -- with those cases, that you saw that made you feel that somebody would not benefit from the first offender class, and you want to write that in so that everyone can take advantage, so that it can work against everyone or the other way around, that's fine. What I have a problem with is, you know, if I have dark hair and somebody else has blond hair, you know --
>> too subjective.
>> it's too subjective, I think.
>> okay. We don't have to decide right now. I do think that we ought to consider all of the comments that we get. Okay?
>> there is a provision in here about the animal control officer may go on to someone's property but not without the person's permission. If they don't have a court order. I like the provision that says they can't do it without a person's permission because I do think we have our rights. I would like that strengthened somewhat to say that the animal control officer is required to tell the person that unless they get permission, they don't have to let them in. I've heard of cases of animal control officers being able to seize dogs or do certain things in people's homes because they convinced the person that they had to let them do that. And this has happened many times over the years. I知 now thinking of a recent -- I知 not thinking of a recent case but cases that have happened and so I would like to ensure that a person is informed you don't have to let me in because this leaves it too open that the animal control officer might convince someone to get them to let them in to seize the dog. Another provision, I just got turned off.
>> no, you didn't.
>> another provision is that an animal control officer does not have to see a dog running at large. But can issue a citation. It doesn't say what -- what they need to be able to issue that citation. I think in an earlier discussion, I heard that -- that there is going to have to be some kind of statement. It doesn't say it. It says an animal control officer, if the animal has gotten back on to their own property when animal control arrives, they may issue a citation. I would like to be sure that, number one, there is some type of a sworn statement that allows for the issuing of the citation, secondly that the person knows how to appeal that citation or knows what to do about it if they want to contest it, given that the animal control officer didn't see their dog running loose.
>> does the citation have written on it --
>> the citation, when we write a citation they would be -- they could go through the court process, through the judicial process to protest that citation.
>> but is that said on the citation?
>> I believe --
>> if you get a traffic citation that tells you where to go, also tells you --
>> I believe they do.
>> we will look at that.
>> okay. On pet registration, I知 going to -- going to discuss two things having to do with pet registration. The first one is where -- where the animal advisory commission made a recommendation that you provide for lifetime pet registration for spayed or neutered animals. By lifetime we meant if you pay your $5 fee, that $5 fee is good for the lifetime of that dog if the dog is spayed or neutered, if the dog or cat is spayed or neutered. What we are trying to do is encourage spaying and neutering by making that fee be very more attractive than the fee that you have to pay if your animal is not spayed or neutered. And so -- so lifetime pet registration for spayed or institute teared animal is something that the animal advisory commission recommended. I want to go beyond that and make another recommendation and say that I request that you put half of your registration fees into a fund or make them somehow available for low cost spay-neuter. That's just something that I think we need to be thinking about more and more, providing low cost spay-neuter, right now the resources that are out there, animal trustees of Austin and the 'em emanca-pet spay neuter van are maxed to the limit. Sure I can tell people that come under this new requirement that you go to a emanci-pet, but the fact is that they are pretty tapped out right now. It would be great if the county would provide for some contribution to increasing the resources for low income people by dedicating a portion of the fees and I request half of the fees that you generate from this new registration requirement to pay for low cost spay-neuter.
>> I think dorinda you covered that before. Part of the thing about life-time anything is that -- is that people's addresses and contact numbers can change and part of the point of the registration is to make sure that we have accurate information. And so lifetime just doesn't get it there.
>> what I知 asking for is that you allow people to change it, but you only charge a one-time $5 fee. In other words, if someone comes to you and says I have changed my address, here's my new address, you put that into the data base. But you don't require annual $5 for a spayed or neutered animal. The animals that are causing you to have costs for animal control, are the animals that are intact and that are reproducing and that are causing the pet overpopulation problem. And I come at this from the point of view if I have done everything right, i've spayed or neutered my animal and I have gotten the -- them registered, don't make me have to pay year after year to allow me to pay one-time, $5 fee and then if you need to update my record, go ahead and allow me to submit an address change through the computer, but don't charge me $5 every year. But the financial burden for paying for animal control and for low cost spay neuter service is on the people who are having their animals intact, running around, creating the problem. That's the basis for that request.
>> okay, we'll think about it.
>> I do -- I would like to see you add shelter to the humane tethering provision.
>> okay.
>> the discussion about something being complaint driven, I would like to say that from time to time I am down at the town lake animal center and there's someone there whose dog was picked up from being on their front porch and was just, you know, a 13-year-old dog recently was picked up for being on somebody's front porch. Now, I have no doubt that you mean it when you say you want it to be complaint driven. But there's a lot of animal control officers driving around and not all of them always only go to the complaints. If they see a dog and there's no leash law, they do pick up that dog. And so I would just like you to -- to be aware of the fact that when you put something in, even though the intent may be to only be complaint driven, sometimes things happen where -- where just about any animal gets picked up. You might want to consider that.
>> let me highlight one difference in the laws between the county law and the city law. The county law does not require restraint to be specific to a fence or tethering or something. It says that you have to keep them on your property. So under this law we would not have the right to I am impound an animal sitting in its own yard, sitting on its own porch, unless it met the requirement that we had in here about, you know, receiving three citations. The city law does require some physical restraint. It's a difference in those laws. Even then if we are going to pick the animal up, it's for that animal's safety. That's the other aspect of this is there is the public safety issue of animals being loose and biting people, there's the traffic hazard to people and the animals themselves, and part of our mission is to protect the animal and so -- so an officer may decide that an animal is at risk even if it's sitting on its own property in the city. This is a difference in the county law that if they are on their own property, then they are meeting the requirements of this law.
>> okay.
>> ly last one had to do with the administrative review, the advisory commission recommended the separation of powers, I concur, strongly support that. I did see that you put some language in there requiring some vague separation of powers. I would like to see that strengthened as much as possible. I do think that the animal control officers and people within the chain of command of the animal control officers that are -- that are making the -- the -- the complaints or that are filing the complaints for the problems should be completely separate from the entity that's reviewing, doing the administrative review. I would request that you make that as strong as possible to ensure that there's separation. Thank you.
>> thank you.
>> judge, the question came up earlier, Gerald was bringing it up about dogs on our county parks, we actually did get the language from the parks department about what our rules are. Related to do we have dog zones in our parks, basically all pets must be kept under the owners direct control and attached to a person or fixed object at all times by a leab, not to exceed -- leash not to exceed 6 feet in leapt, shall not be left unattached or constitute a nuisance. Noisy, vicious, dangerous animals are not permitted in the county parks. Then we have places where pets are not allowed at all, nice or not, at hamilton pool, wild basin, hippie holly, tom hughes, the point at bob wentz except for horse patrol. Only dogs permitted to be off leash at pace bend park and webberville park provided they are kept under the owner's direct control at all times. And then we have got horses allowed as well. So you do have clarification.
>> anybody else today? Then let me propose the following schedule: some residents e-mailed me and said they have comments to give us, but they did not have time to do so before today. The good news for those residents is that they have the rest of this week to get those comments to us. Hopefully by next Tuesday, we will be able to e-mail another revised draft to interested residents. And ... Next week I propose that we schedule a public hearing on the next draft for -- for February 22nd. That's two weeks from today. So if we incorporate changes discussed today, any others that we get to the -- to the -- to the -- any the committee finds to be acceptable, come up with another revised draft by next Tuesday, e-mailed no later than Tuesday to interested residents. That draft. And schedule it for a public hearing on February 22nd. Two weeks from today. That we receive comments on February 22nd and that we post the animal control restraint leash law, whatever we call it, by the way we ought to figure out what we call it, for final action by this court on March 8th. So that is two weeks from the public hearing. And four weeks from today. Any problem with that? Now, I did receive a few cautionary e-mails, basically saying don't rush to judgment on this. So we are trying not to. I do think that we ought to between now and March 8th, and if we have done so by February 12th it will be -- February 22nd it will be good, give some thought to the public education program and whether or not we will have a grace period for enforcement after final adoption on March 8th, if we comply with that. How does that sound?
>> okay. I need to get to the committee the e-mails that I got yesterday. They don't have to come to me, but if they would do what I would try to do between now and Friday is get any additional comments to marry yet take, okay? Marry eta, okay? Most of those e-mails are going to us as well. I was able to catch up with those yesterday and tried to ask and bring up as many points as possible that came in those e-mails, but there may be one or two that we didn't get, but most of them have been sent to all of us.
>> this is an area slightly complicated because there is a city of Austin ordinance that we are trying to be as consistent with that as possible also anticipate actions that the city may take. There are state statutory provision that's we must comply with, whether we like them or not. And at the same time, try to incorporate as many comments from residents as possible.
>> if the comments could come in sooner than Friday, that would be good better because getting the entire committee together and getting a draft and having the committee review it and decide what they want to agree to send out is -- can be time consuming. So getting those, you know, Friday at 5:00 gives us just Monday. To put it together, get it together, decide on it and have it ready for Tuesday. So the sooner the comments can come in, the better the draft will be.
>> okay.
>> judge? Let me frame something up that I -- that I -- this is personally how I feel about getting into this dangerous wild animal thing. I don't want this thing to get bogged down with dangerous wild animals, tigers, lions.
>> bears.
>> all of those kind of things.
>> oh, my.
>> that apparently has a lot more history than I do on this court, I mean, from an a.g.'s opinion all of this kind of stuff. I would just hope that we don't get to where we are trying to get with this dog thing and then all of a sudden somebody has a real problem with having dangerous wild animals in this thing and we are another month, so I would hope that we can -- somehow distinguish between -- I知 sure I知 not the only one that's gotten e-mails and phone calls, from some folks about dangerous wild animals.
>> get some legal advice.
>> I do think we ought to go into this item in executive session this afternoon and get those [indiscernible] issues addressed. But any issues with the schedule that I suggested? I do think it keeps us moving forward. At the time it gives us ample opportunity for additional public input and gives us an opportunity to mull over provisions.
>> I put my proposed schedule in the form of a motion.
>> second.
>> discussion? Let's take a look at the grace period and public education. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you everybody for coming down.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, February 9, 2005 9:04 AM