BLUE RIBBON TASK FORCE ON TETHERING MINUTES OF REGULAR MEETING October 29, 2013 A regular meeting of the Blue Ribbon Task Force on Tethering was held on Tuesday, October 29, 2013, at 12:00 p.m. in Conference Room A located in the McPherson Complex at 601 SE 25th Avenue, Ocala, Florida. Upon roll call the following Task Force members were present: Brandon Sirol/i, Kerry Crawford, Butch Verrando, Linda Norman, Roger Knechtel, Bruce Fishalow and Deborah Horvath. Ocala Police Chief Greg Graham, Public Information Officer Elaine McClain, Assistant County Administrator Stuart McElhaney, Senior Assistant County Attorney Dana Taylor and Task Force Secretary R~nee Pierce were also present. i A motion was made by Butch Verrando to accept the minutes from the October 23, 2013, meeting; second by Linda Norman; unanimously approved (7-0). REPRESENTATIVE FROM CITY OF OCALA Ocala Police Chief Greg Graham stated he is a member of the Humane Society Board of Directors. Kerry Crawford explained that the Task Force had invited Chief Graham as they realized the City had some interest and concerns about tethering and wanted to hear those concerns, may help with making a decision. Chief Graham explained that he was not working with the Ocala Police Department during time when the switch happened from the City having Animal Control to the County being responsible. One of his main concerns with that change was that the Police Department no longer had the authority to enforce the ordinance within the city limits. They could enforce the state law, but that was not as restrictive as the local ordinance. He said it would be an easy fix, but needed to be straightened out. Discussion took place on the designation of authority for animal control. Chief Graham described several recent cases in the city involving drugs and dog fighting and they were limited to the drug issue because they did not have authority to handle the dog fighting. He explained that law enforcement sometimes uses animal control issues as a tool to get on the property to investigate other possible violations. He also stated there were several cases that would have been handled differently if they had been handling it. Chief Graham advised they were in the process of training an Ocala Police Officer to handle cruelty. Discussed a current case they are working involving a dog, Duncan Malloy. He said they would be starting to do more investigations as far as animal control. Kerry Crawford asked if the Ocala Police Department had a significant level of reports involving tethering cruelty. Chief Graham said he it was not possible to research that information in their database. Page 1
Bruce Fishalow asked Chief Graham if the glitch was corrected and the City had enforcement rights and duties within in the city limits, did he see it would be a problem to enforce an antitethering ordinance. Chief Graham said it would not be a problem. He said he thought the law should be enacted, and the last thing he would want to say was you don't want to enact it because you do not have the manpower to enforce it, that's what they were there for. He said if you look at the calls for service versus the amount of time spent conducting routine patrol, there was plenty of time for them to respond to or to notice an animal being tethered and stop to do something about it. He said the officers do that now, if they saw an animal being mistreated they would stop and do something; unfortunately, now there is not a lot they can do, except call animal control and if it's in the middle of the night, a response mayor may not come. At least if they have the authority they could write a ticket or seize the animal. He reiterated that it would give them a reason to stop and talk to people and then possibly discover other violations. Discussion took place on recent cases and the correlation of dog violations with drugs, spouse and child neglect issues. Deborah Horvath explained that animal control officers have no authority over those other issues and they were not armed to defend themselves. Kerry Crawford agreed that this would be an additional tool for law enforcement. Chief Graham explained how the police department handled animal control when he was in Cedar Rapids. Dana Taylor explained "bait dogs." She also said that just as law enforcement currently lacks authority to enforce animal control issues, animal control also faced limits on those other issues that were often related to animal control/cruelty. A discussion took place on past cases and cooperation between law enforcement and animal control agencies. Linda Norman and Chief Graham both expressed that dog boxes or rabbit hutches were part of the same issue as tethering and should also be addressed as inhumane. They were concerned that those numbers would increase if the anti-tethering ordinance was passed. Kerry Crawford stated they were given strict guidelines on what the Task Force was empowered to work on. Dana Taylor explained that a problem with those other issues was that the State Statute allowed them as long as certain other requirements were met. Butch Verrando asked if animal control officers were trained in Judicial Evidence collection. Dana Taylor said they do have some training and legal understanding; also the veterinarian does a lot of additional training and trying to get certified in forensics. CASE LAW PERTAINING TO TETHERING AND PROPERTY RIGHTS Dana Taylor stated she had researched other counties and did not come up with any case law regarding some of the newer tethering ordinances. She encouraged the Task Force Members to read our current ordinance on tethering, because it does have a pretty good basic foundation from all the other counties because that research was done at the time it was rewritten. She agreed with Chief Graham that it would really come down to the "attended or unattended" and the "intent" of the ordinance. Dana Taylor referred to research that Patricia Reed had done on animal licensing and property rights. She mentioned that Miami-Dade had given a six month window to educate citizens on the anti-tethering ordinance. She said the Task Force would either decide to keep the current ordinance, or tighten it up a little bit, and even at the worst outset of no tethering at all, it would be okay from a legal standpoint. Page 2
Dana explained the process that the animal control officer would issue a citation and if not paid, the person would be subpoenaed for court and it would then be up to the Judge to decide. Judges are perceptive but have concerns when you get into "unattended, time limits, etc." Discussion took place on previous cases where citations were taken to court and the various outcomes. Linda Norman asked about other counties that had written "unattended" in their anti-tethering ordinance, saying the animal must be attended by the owner or responsible party, would that be easy to enforce? Dana said there may be different issues with the Judges but that rarely happens. She said most people issued a citation by animal control do not even pay them; but usually when people go to court to fight a citation, it was to ask for a reduction in the fine. Linda Norman asked if we had an ordinance with that definition and then a child was killed, would that make it more of a liability on the responsible party _ Dana said that even if tethering was not allowed at all, the only thing Marion County Animal Services could do would be to write that person a citation. Other parts of the statutes address the cruelty aspect. She explained that a tethering ordinance would not accomplish what Linda Norman was trying to accomplish. Butch Verrando added they could not legislate responsibility. Discussion took place on how a tethering ordinance might eliminate some incidents but would not eliminate all. Brandon Sirolli asked would tethering be under animal cruelty. Linda Norman reminded everyone that at the last meeting members had agreed (6-1) that 24n tethering was inhumane. Dana Taylor advised the members to let her know if they had questions come up and said she planned to look into some issues Chief Graham had mentioned. Brandon Sirolli asked if other counties were calling tethering cruelty. Dana said most of the counties that enacted the tethering ordinances were going with the presumption that tethering in and of itself was cruel. She explained some of the State Statutes that define cruelty. Bruce Fishalow asked if any county had banned attended tethering. Dana Taylor said she had not found any, most followed Marion County's wording on if you were going to tether you have to meet certain requirements. Bruce Fishalow asked if they could take a vote on whether the members were against reasonable humane attended tethering. The members decided against taking the vote at the time. Discussion took place on the need for specific, clear, concise wording that left no room for ambiguity_ The need for enforcement having some discretion was also discussed. Dana Taylor said Mr. Minter had previously worked with several members of the task force defining owner as "responsible party." They had also worked on the definition of "unattended." ANIMAL CRUELTY ASPECT OF TETHERING Linda Norman gave out a flyer on the Humane Society's Pet Parenting Program and explained how it worked. She said the tethering ordinance would be the beginning of education and would like to make a partnership with Marion County Animal Services. Brandon Sirolli suggested the option to offer the Pet Parenting Program to someone as an alternative to paying a citation issued for tethering. Page 3
Linda Norman distributed several additional handouts concerning animal cruelty to provide input from some national organizations, O&A's on why dog tethering is not a good thing. Roger Knectel mentioned obedience school as an alternative to needing a fence. Linda Norman said neglected dogs have no relationship with their owners. When you have a good relationship with your dog they would look to you for direction. Kerry Crawford expressed that the Task Force Members have been inundated with material, including emails, but it was important to read it all and be aware of it. Butch Verrando asked for material to be emailed when possible. Deborah Horvath explained that some members did not have email so to allow time for mailing when possible. Linda Norman described a dog that was tethered 2417 and constantly jumped over the fence. In the photo, it had been over the fence for three days and the owner had not noticed. She mentioned the cases were from Chatmire. Linda said the dogs in the photos had been tethered for six years. Butch Verrando asked didn't they have to go to the vet to get a rabies shot. Deborah Horvath said they were not in compliance, did not take animals to the vet, and did not have licenses. Dana Taylor said most people do not realize failure to pay the citation does nothing except possibly a judgment in the future. Many people issued a citation end up surrendering the dogs because they cannot pay the fines. Butch Verrando asked if the Humane Society was willing to take responsibility for animals seized in tethering situations. Bruce Fishalow said the Humane Society is a "no kill" organization, also known as a "managed intake," every dog or cat taken in by them stays there it's entire life or until adopted so they could not take a dog that would be unadoptable. Butch Verrando said then basically you pass that responsibility on to the County to bear. Bruce Fishalow said they were not mandated to take in all animals like the County was. They helped to alleviate the situation by adopting out as many animals as they could, 1500 a year, while the county adopted out approximately 2400 to 2600 each year. Chief McElhaney asked Bruce Fishalow if the Humane Society was still bringing in animals from out of the county. Bruce said yes, smaller dogs they have to bring in from out of county. Linda Norman reiterated that the Pet Parenting Program showed the Humane Society was doing its part. Butch Verrando said if you eliminate the tethering and save the animals you have to have a place for them to go and that it should not be the responsibility of the tax payers to take up the slack for the animal owners not doing what they were supposed to. Bruce Fishalow and Deborah Horvath said the County was already doing that. Linda Norman said the ones that surrendered their animal because of the anti-tethering; she would question whether they ever cared about the animal at all. Linda Norman described another case in June in the Shores, where the dogs were gone and it appeared to be graves on the property. Butch Verrando and Linda Norman both expressed that the dogs were better off than they were. Linda showed a photo of a dog that was tethered in Marion Oaks that did not complete the Pet Parenting Program. Butch Verrando asked what was being accomplished by the photos. Linda Norman answered that she wants an ordinance to be able to address these situations. Bruce Fishalow said she wants an ordinance banning unattended tethering. Page 4
WRAP-UP Kerry Crawford went through structuring the Agenda for the next meeting. He said they had talked a lot about discretion, policy and protocol, and wondered if the Members would like to have someone from the Animal Control staff come in and talk about protocol, time frames, how often they have to go back out, and policy on how many days, resources, etc. The Members agreed that it would be helpful and thanked Dana Taylor for her input. Dana explained that shortly after starting with the County in 2010 she had started working exclusively with Animal Services. She suggested in addition to Animal Control Manager Nathan Dickerson, that Stephanie Owens or Scott Anderson also come to speak and possibly Stephanie Kash since she had run the gamut on different cases. Kerry Crawford asked about FACA's standpoint on tethering. Deborah Horvath said their Policy Statement was included with the October 23 Agenda packet. Kerry also said they needed to start focusing on the ordinances, review the other counties' and our ordinance and be prepared to look at definitions. Butch Verrando said it was time to start zeroing down on what they were going to do. Kerry agreed and expressed the accomplishments from the meeting. Deborah Horvath asked Dana Taylor if she would relay the information Chief Graham had expressed about not having authority to handle animal cruelty in the City of Ocala to the Board of County Commissioners. Kerry Crawford asked if the Minutes from the Task Force meetings were being sent to the Board of County Commissioners. Dana and Chief McElhaney advised that the minutes would be under Notation for Record on the Board of County Commissioners Agenda. The Task Force Members thanked Dana again for her helpful input and she said she really enjoyed working with Animal Services and thought they have come a long way in the past few years. She said ultimately they could only do so much and the ordinance could only do so much. In other counties, the Judges can actually order someone to go to classes. Discussed lunch arrangements for next meeting; Deborah said she would bring pizza to the next meeting set for November 20,2013, at 12:00 Noon. Meeting adjourned at 2:08 p.m. Kerry cjawta Chairman Witness Date Adopted Page 5