All Teeth, Claws Over Ordinance
By Cassie Smith
From the Bryan-College Station Eagle
The city of Bryan's proposed animal control ordinance might be in for some changes, and possibly a total rewrite, after residents voiced concerns about the document during a public hearing Tuesday.
About 25 Bryan residents picked apart the 29-page draft, criticizing provisions in the plan that prohibit dogs from riding in the backs of trucks, limit residents to four animals and allow for a program that traps stray animals, neuters them and returns them to the streets.
Input collected at the public hearing will be presented to the City Council before the proposal goes to a vote, and two more public hearings on the issue are scheduled this month.
Resident Frances DeGelia said the ordinance should outlaw selling animals on the side of the street or in parking lots.
DeGelia said she regularly sees people selling puppies in such places, with steam from the asphalt rising around them in the summer heat.
"In addition to being inhumane, it poses yet another public health risk because you have animals going out with no vaccinations and no information going out to these folks, and then they're going out into the general public," she said.
Texas A&M professor Charles Brooks was worried that language in the draft ordinance puts the city at risk of a lawsuit because, he said, the circumstances allowing for animal control officers to enter a residence when nobody is home are illegal.
"I would implore you all in Bryan to take a hard look at whether or not you want to do this because I think it's very, very problematic," Brooks said, encouraging officials to study the 4th, 5th and 14th amendments of the Constitution.
Irmgard McDaniel said she was also concerned about the ability of animal control officers to search homes without a warrant.
"I think the emphasis of the ordinance ought to be on protecting the public first, and then the welfare of the animals," she said. "I'm an animal lover, but the job of the ordinance is to protect the public."
Mary Landreth said limiting homeowners to four animals is arbitrary.
"If I want to have more than four animals I have to have your permission, and that just doesn't strike me very well," she said.
The ordinance should emphasize making stray animals adoptable, said Margaret Cannon, a homeowner and volunteer for Brazos Feral Cat Allies. Cannon said animals benefit children and the elderly and can teach compassion and responsibility and enhance morals. She said killing stray animals wasn't the best solution.
City Councilman Al Saenz said the city's ordinance should be in sync with the city of College Station and Brazos County ordinances so that animal control regulations were uniform.
"I think that we should revisit this document, start from the bottom and create something we'll be proud of," Saenz said.
Published on Wednesday, June 03, 2009
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