Fiscal Court Committees - Regular Meeting

So hello and welcome, everyone, to the resources and community support committee. We have on our agenda nothing from previous meetings. Becca, did you have anything today that you needed to bring forth?

All right.

Not today. Erin? Go out, Mike. I know that Chris Yates is here. He's on his way upstairs.

Okay.

So while he's doing that, I'll just say Judge Tall had a conflict with the meeting, so he will not be here, but he did let me know that he couldn't make it, as well as Laurel. She had a conflict, and I think Sarah Jo also. So we have a short agenda, and hopefully... just one topic to discuss, which is good. So while we're waiting on Chris to come in, did you want to get started and discuss anything at a time like this?

I mean, it mimics, it's pretty much the same ordinance that Radcliffe and E-Town already have in place. And we knew it was going to happen eventually.

Excuse me, and I don't mean to interrupt, but just to

guess rephrase we are talking about an ordinance for dogs and cats only unincorporated areas okay and it's basically the exact same thing that they had there we knew it they would eventually the people that want to do this would figure it out and would eventually you know find those areas like right across from rural King is not incorporated so they were sitting up and housing there as I think why this might have got started.

Okay. And Chris, welcome. Hello, Patsy. Our guest of honor is here. So Chris, I think, wants to introduce an ordinance for discussion. Well, we just kind of got started a little bit. I thought I would leave the glory to you. I know you've been working with Jenny. on this and let you kind of introduce it and run us through the particulars of it, if you don't mind.

All right, so last committee meeting, Mike and I mentioned this briefly. I was asked by Councilwoman Murrow from Radcliffe and Councilwoman Julia Springsteen from the City of Elizabethtown. Both Radcliffe and Elizabethtown have already had this ordinance pretty much word for word, the exact same thing, or same way. Myself and Mike talked with Jenny last week, week till last, about this, and we felt as if it'd be best just to make it a countywide ordinance. Everybody's on the same page. It would make it for West Point up to and all the unincorporated areas as well. Mike is saying he can speak to it more. He's got to stop the sale of puppy mills, stop the sale of dogs that's not been vetted, and all that stuff, and selling flea markets on the side of the road, Walmart parking lot. I don't think he can speak to the benefits and the logic behind it.

And also, if you could just kind of review what you mentioned earlier about the enforcement.

It would all be enforced by the animal control officers. Um, if somebody witnesses this, and of course, we plan on trying to get ahead of it and going out to the places where we think. We might see this happening and try and make sure they're aware of the change and try and. Put the fire out before it gets started, so to speak. Um, but, you know, puppy meals are, um. You know, big, big industry and and, you know, other places. Across the nation already have this type of stuff in place trying to stop, you know, the. Essentially, what they're doing is mass producing. Dogs and and cats for profit and. In the process, you know, they're putting out a lot of unhealthy. Animals and it's basically we already have an overpopulation. Problem, you know. So I thought, like I said, I worked with Julia on this years ago. And I think it's the right move. I was delighted that somebody, because I asked for it. way back when, and was like, well, let's just see if it ever affects us.

I was like, well, eventually they'll figure it out.

This is about making money. Humans want to make money and they'll figure it out sooner or later. So, and that's essentially what's been happening. I'm sure Chris is probably getting, or I'm assuming you can get the calls from right across from you.

Well, we all probably have. I mean, obviously I do because of who I know. So, I mean, uh,

I don't think it's going to change anything for anybody, but us. And, you know, I can't, I don't can't see the future, but I just don't see it changing anything. It's just going to cause us a little more work, but it's work that we're all willing to do. We always work.

So, quick question.

We know that Radcliffe and Elizabeth have the ordinance. It's similar to this. The other incorporated cities, have we done any coordination with them?

This will include it. The very bottom of the whereas.

Do we actually have any authority there in this regard?

Jenny looked it over and I would say so.

Okay. Great job.

Jenny suggested it.

I was looking for it.

It's on the last whereas.

Thank you.

Right below.

Gotcha.

All right.

Real good. I don't know that we're going to be able to stop every single one of these from happening. We've only got four officers. So, you know, but I do think it's a move in the right direction. Or, I mean, like I said, I was delighted when he called and said, hey, what do you think about this? I loved it four years ago. At that time, they just... I think it was Daniel that I talked with. Daniel was like, let's just wait and see what... And I understood his logic behind it, but I knew they'd figure it out.

Question is, they have like a flea market, and if they're found to be animals being sold at a flea market, is the person who owns the flea market and they also the vendor both going to be comfortable in this?

I think it's just the vendor, but I can try and verify that with you. But I don't think it's, I don't think it's because, I think it's just the person selling the puppets.

And also, in the penalty, each animal offered for sale, so if they've got two or three in there, add up quick, it's $5,000 or double the amount of corporation's gain, which I don't think many people are going to make $5,000.

Right. $15,000 pretty quick? I don't think so. The idea is necessary to find $5,000 to stop it.

Now, let's say Toshi's group wants to set up and do adoptions at one of the local events or whatever. This will not prevent that. Those are adoptions. Those are different. Those are from rescued animals. I mean, for rescued animals. It's not a sale for profits.

But if someone wants to, has puppies and they want to sell them out of their home, this will not affect the sale of that.

Mike, why don't we go and do something about all these people that's just, I've got three neighbors that's probably got 250 cats.

Yeah, cat with them a million times. They have hutches built and all kinds of stuff. I mean, TNR is the only thing we can really do to solve the problem. And it's, I mean, I do know that your neighbors don't like anybody trying to tell them what to do with their pets. Even when I do my best to suggest, hey, it's the best thing for them. It's healthy. I'll help you with this. I'll help you with that. I know why you're here.

There's no way they have all those cats. I never saw that healthy.

No, no, there's no way. But the ones that I saw, I mean, usually they say there's three. that you don't see for everyone you do see. And when I went out, I did not witness what I thought was 250 cats there, but that, you know, I also came out there, I did my spill, and then I was gone because they were not happy to see me. And we've had, I've been back there, not myself, but had my officers go back twice just saying, hey, we're going to have a big event. We're trying to do this, you know. Would you like to come in and help? Now, I can tell you that we can set traps up at your house. Any of them that come to your property and get trapped, we can bring them in, and we can do the surgery on them.

Well, I heard an advertising the other day. One day last week, they said a male and female cat in nine years could produce a million cats. Mm-hmm. True. Yeah.

Do you have a relationship with your neighbors? You said there are three neighbors that have approximately, could you say 250 cats? Have you talked with your neighbors about these cats?

Well, I've talked to them and told them, look, if you don't do something, you got 50. Now, next year, you're going to have 100. Just be more than 100. Are they...

willing to work with you if maybe maybe you might be a good point of contact they like their cats yeah they have houses built for them and everything so yeah i'm glad they're your neighbors so they have homes for the cats on their property but the cats get loose you know they got

they got big barns so you know most of them stay in the barn but one of them you pull into it into the driveway and here comes about a hundred cats running out of the barn up to the house this doesn't apply to them right now let's say any of these cats that come on Larry's property he can trap and bring to us and if they will use a litter box and we can adopt them out we will We just schedule it as all we do, just because obviously I can't have... Can he bring that to you? No, he has to bring them to us.

But I can bring them to you and then...

Either we'll spay and neuter them and return them, or if we can adopt them out, we'll adopt them out. It depends on how the cats are.

But I'm not going to get stuck with them.

No.

I thought once you pick up a stray, once, about there, a couple of times about this, once you pick up a stray and feed it, bring it in the house, put it in the car, it's yours. Now, Larry picks up these stray cats and puts them in his truck and brings them to you.

Is he authorized to enforce? Is he authorized to enforce?

No, but he can trap and he can bring them to us. I mean, these cats do not have Larry's permission to be on his properties. So he just needs to, you know, give me notice. Hey, I'm going to be operating these two traps and then we, you know, do them two at a time. So we get them taken care of.

Okay. So back to the ordinance then. Are there any other specific questions? I know that, you know, I personally feel this is needed. I agree with you. I probably should have done this four years ago or sooner. And I think it's a great thing to incorporate. Do we have any questions from committee as to the ordinance? Oh, Aaron has a question.

It's specific to dogs and cats.

Specific to dogs and cats.

That's all. That's all it.

No gerbils? No.

No mice?

Rats?

Snakes? Rabbits? No rabbits. What about fiscal court members? I know we've had some good conversation on this and some comments.

Any other comments you'd like to share or questions that you have for either Chris or Mike?

Just out of curiosity, where does the penalty go? Does it just go to, you know, if it is $5,000?

I believe that everything that we, when we get a fine, like if it's not a reimbursement for board, it goes to, I think the sheriff is the one who gets those, if I'm not mistaken. You'd have to ask Jenny that for sure. Like when they have to pay their fines, we don't get that.

Did she tell you that, Chris, when you all were discussing this board event? I can answer this question if you'd like. When there is restitution to be paid through a court case or something like that, it is collected by Janice's office because it's part of a settlement, but it does come through and it goes into fees and fines for fishers in the general fund budget because that's where animal control is budgeted. Okay, great. Thank you.

I was going to say, I mean, obviously it would be nice to use that as a more of a way to give you all some more revenue to help with the animals too.

Well, yeah, I mean, but like Chris said, I think once this comes out, it's going to take care of the, I really truly believe it's going to take care of the people that we've been having trouble with.

Sure.

And I would hope, you know, once you go to the flea market or whatever, once or twice, whoever's running, it's going to know and they're going to relate it to people like you.

I don't need them up here. The last time that they set up at the flea market across from Roe King, we actually dispatched an officer. He went up and we were able to point out a problem with watering of the fowl that were there. They didn't have clean, adequate water supply for the fowl. And basically, they were asked to leave and they did. They were like four hours away in Indiana. They drove here to set up here to do this. So, but we were able to find a way to get them to leave the last time we were notified of it. But that's not always going to work. I mean, I'm sure the next time, you know, they come back, we're going to have five buckets or whatever they needed to to take care of the problem.

So that's chickens. That's not.

Yeah, we, yeah, but there was, they were the ones that also had the pubs, but we noticed that and used it to our advantage. So.

Any other questions comments. So, um, I would assume this would be, um.

It requires two meetings.

Let me just go ahead and pick this on the next physical court. And then, yes, sorry.

There are advertising requirements with the ordinance. All ordinances need advertisements.

Yeah. There's an ordinance.

Okay. Yeah. So you may want to look at your calendar to schedule that out.

Does it have to be advertised ahead of time or do you have the first reading and then the advertisement?

What's that?

I was asking because the first reading would have to be approved, I'm assuming. First reading has to be approved through fiscal court to even have the first reading. So I would think you could advertise, you advertise after that?

It depends on what kind of ordinance it is. Like the budget ordinance has different rules and I don't handle those. So I don't know those. I could tell you the taxes and the budget. That's mine. Just my suggestion that we check that out before we put it on the agenda for sure.

Well, I'll check that out before. What I'll do is I'll leave that open, but I'll check that out and make sure that we're not violating advertising restrictions there. Thank you for Sarah bringing that up. Any other questions then? All right then. Thank you. Bonnie, did you have anything that you wanted to bring forward from the judge's office? No. Okay. I expressed his regret that he couldn't make the meeting. He had a conflict with the date, so I did that. Anybody have anything else? Right then, with that, I'm going to adjourn the meeting. Thank you so much for coming out this evening. Appreciate it.