Years of debate produce minor proposed animal control changes
| Saturday, Nov 28 2009 12:00 PM
Last Updated Saturday, Nov 28 2009 12:00 PM
Kern County leaders say the county's animal ordinances just aren't worth fighting over any longer.
Supervisors and members of the county Animal Control Commission, after 42 months of bloody debate, have settled on a few simple changes to animal laws and calling it good.
Animal Control Director Guy Shaw said those changes would give him important tools to address the root cause of animal overpopulation -- irresponsible breeding.
Work on the changes started in May 2006.
Supervisors were looking to combat animal overpopulation and high shelter kill rates. They also wanted to fight the flow of animal hoarders and backyard breeders fleeing Southern California to take refuge under Kern County's relatively permissive animal laws.
Supervisors created the Animal Control Commission to draft new rules. On Dec. 8, the rules will come to supervisors for a vote.
People who advertise animals for sale would have to include a license or permit number with their ad, giving animal control officers a lead on people who might be breeding animals without permitting or licensing their animals, Shaw said.
Fees for a three-year animal license for an unaltered dog would be reduced.
On Nov. 18, commissioners axed controversial language that would have required people with more than 10 animals to get a permit and allow inspections of their operations.
Perhaps the toughest rule supervisors will see in December -- heavy, progressive administrative penalties on people who don't license their dogs -- actually wouldn't require an ordinance change.
Animal Control has had the power to level those penalties since 2006, said Shaw, but never created a policy to implement it.
Shaw said he has been working, independently, on creating that policy for months. It would have been implemented with or without the ordinance, he said.
Weary commissioners said they are tired of the long fight and are ready to move on to other animal-related issues that have been on hold since 2006.
"I'm grateful that we finally have something that can probably pass," said Commissioner Susan Madigan. "It was the very first thing the commission was given. We just need to get it in there."
She'd like to tackle dangerous dog policies next.
Shaw said what changes have been made will give him the power to accomplish the goals supervisors set when they asked for the ordinance 3 1/2 years ago.
Madigan withheld her vote from the final version of the ordinance approved by commissioners Nov. 18 because she believed the 10-pet permit language needed to be in the ordinance.
But Shaw said the language wouldn't have helped fight backyard breeders and animal hoarders.
He argued it would only have hurt legitimate breeders operating honestly under existing rules. Dishonest breeders wouldn't have offered to get that permit just because the county created it, Shaw said.
He promised to find those violators, ordinance change or no ordinance change.
"We've got to get them in the system. We've got to know where they are," he said.
Madigan said Shaw read the political tea leaves and knew the proposed ordinance wouldn't pass supervisor review with the 10-pet permit language.
"His argument (at the commission meeting was) that three (members) of the Board of Supervisors didn't like it and the community didn't want it," she said.
Much of the justification for axing the 10-pet limit was pulled together in workshops held around Kern County at the request of Supervisor Jon McQuiston, who has long been skeptical of the need for more animal regulation.
Opponents of the ordinance used those workshops to attack the non-commercial animal permit rule.
Shaw acknowledged opponents of the 10-pet limit used those workshops to stack up opposition to the rule.
"There were people who came to the workshops who came to every workshop and said the same thing," Shaw said. "The few are affecting the majority. That's the way all workshops work."
Many of the workshop speakers have been regular faces at Kern County Animal Control Commission meetings for years.
"We did have people who are at every commission meeting who were at every workshop," said Animal Control Commissioner Janice Anderson. "But we had some new faces too."
Anderson, who runs a commercial kennel and dog-training business, had reluctantly supported the previous version of the ordinance with the 10-pet rule.
Now she enthusiastically supports the new version of the ordinance.
If people try to sell more than one litter of pets a year, animal control officers can track them and require them to get a commercial animal facility permit.
"The licensing is going to be really critical to this," Anderson said. "We're going to need to step up enforcement."
Stepping up enforcement may be tough.
Supervisors, facing tough financial times, have resisted spending additional money on enforcing animal licensing laws.
They reluctantly funded two staff members to do county licensing sweeps when they were promised those workers would raise at least enough new revenue to pay for themselves.
But the Public Education and Enforcement Team will likely be eliminated if it doesn't live up to its profitability promise.
"We've got the test going with PEET. It's in their court," said Supervisor Don Maben.
Maben has been a driving force behind improving Kern animal control regulation. But even he is tired after the years of back-and-forth on a revised ordinance.
"Is it everything I would have liked to have seen? No," he said. "Right now I'll be happy to get anything out of this."
