Animal Services Advisory Board

Animal Control Advisory Board Minutes April 19, 2017 www.wichita.gov The Animal Control Advisory Board meeting was held at 4 p.m. at 3313 N. Hillside, Wichita, KS 67219. Eight Board members and three City staff were present; 20 citizens attended. Members Present Staff Present Teresa Burks Capt. Brent Allred, WPD Chris Hagman Lt. Joe Schroeder, WPD Judy Handley Janet Johnson, City Manager’s Office Judy Hill Stephanie McCurdy Melodee Myers Christy Rafferty John Stevens Members Absent Guests Listed on last page ORDER OF BUSINESS Chair Stephanie McCurdy called the meeting to order. Minutes from the March 15 meeting were approved 8-0. STAFF REPORTS Lt. Joe Schroeder provided Shelter statistics for March. Total number of intakes for the month was 635. March reclaims (animals picked up by their owner) - Dogs – 168 – 44% of total intakes - Cats – 15 – 6% of total intakes - Other – 0– 0% of total intakes - Total reclaims 183 - 29% March transfers (animals taken by KHS or other rescues) - Dogs – 204 - 53% of total intakes - Cats – 153 – 65% of total intakes - Other – 10 – 59% of total intakes - Total – 367 – 58% of total intakes March euthanasia - Dogs – 11- 7% of total intakes - Cats – 67 – 29% of total intakes - Other – 7– 41% of total intakes - Total – 85 – 13% of total intakes Euthanasia breakdown was: Dogs = 11 Cats = 67 Other = 7 3 for medical 0 for fearfulness 4 for medical 5 for rabies specimen testing 39 for medical 3 for rabies specimen testing 0 found dead in kennel 0 for aggressiveness 3 for aggressiveness 3 for rabies specimen testing 0 for age 0 DOA 0 DOA 0 found dead in cage 25 feral Page 1 of 5  Animal Control Advisory Board Minutes April 19, 2017 www.wichita.gov March dog bites totaled 55 - District 1 – 19 - District 2 – 4 - District 3 – 7 - District 4 – 14 - District 5 – 6 - District 6 – 5 March dogs deemed dangerous totaled 5 - District 1 – 0 - District 2 – 1 - District 3 – 1 - District 4 – 2 - District 5 – 0 - District 6 – 1 Lt. Schroeder reported they sent three Animal Services Officers to become nationally certified as Humane Animal Control Officers. The United States Humane Society will be providing some additional training for Animal Services staff in the near future. He said there are a number of surrounding towns who have their own Animal Control officers, but they use the Wichita Animal Shelter; contracts with those towns have been finalized and are up and running. He said in the past Goddard didn’t participate, but as of this year, they are also using the Wichita Animal Shelter. Schroeder also reported they had a recent rabies case in the 100 block of N. Perry. A resident heard his dog barking and when he went outside to investigate found a skunk chasing his dog. The man struck it with a shovel and then called Animal Services to pick it up. Schroeder said it was sent to K-State for testing and came back positive. He said they notified the media and handed out flyers in the neighborhood. He reminded everyone to get their animals vaccinated. Lt. Schroeder showed the Board some photographs that were taken at a cat hoarder’s house. He said he attended the TNR subcommittee meeting and was told that 5-6 cats are the ideal number for a cat colony. He said he doesn’t know if TNR works, but he does know that cat hoarding cannot be allowed. He said Animal Services doesn’t go out hunting for cat colonies, but when they get a call from citizens stating they can no longer use their porch or yard due to feral cats, they do address the feral cat issue. The woman who was hoarding the cats had between 25 and 30 that she was feeding and they were using the next door neighbor’s porch and yard as a litter box. He said there were 26 bowls of food on the porch that were full every time Animal Services visited. He said after Animal Services responded to the complaint and saw the situation, they gave the woman a month to comply. When she didn’t, she was cited and will now have to go to court. Teresa Burks asked how often this location will be monitored. Lt. Schroeder said after the case goes to court, they will follow up for compliance and anything the court orders. He said Officers visited the next door neighbor’s house and the front porch reeked of cat urine to the point it was unusable. He said the other neighbors don’t seem to be having a problem; it appears the cats are all using this one property for their litter box. Judy Handley asked if Animal Services had picked up any of the cats at that house. Schroeder said yes, but he’s not sure how many and a local rescue group has gone out and trapped some. Handley said there probably is no longer 30 cats present; Schroeder said he hopes not, but as long as that much food is constantly out it’s going to continually attract more cats. John Stevens asked where Perry Street is located; Schroeder said it is in the Riverside area. Page 2 of 5  Animal Control Advisory Board Minutes April 19, 2017 www.wichita.gov Teresa Burks stated that skunks and bats are the most common carriers of rabies in the Wichita area. She said if someone finds a bat in their sleeping area, they would be wise to catch it and have it tested as bats can bite while the person is asleep and the person may never even know that they were bitten. She encouraged everyone to look at the K-State website rabies information. Action Taken: Receive and file. COMMITTEE REPORTS Spay-Neuter Committee Teresa Burks, committee chair, reported the committee is looking at the effectiveness of mandatory spay/neuter laws for cats. She said they still need some additional information. She said they are also considering doing a survey of local veterinarians to see if they would do some low cost spays/neuters to help with the cat overpopulation. She said she needed to get with Capt. Allred about the materials for the education campaign. He said to send an e-mail and he would schedule a time to meet with her. Dangerous Dog Committee John Stevens, committee chair, passed out committee minutes and other documents relating to USPS dog bite stats and other information. He pointed out that Wichita is number 26 nationally for dog bites, which is a 28 percent increase over the previous year. He contacted Animal Control in Cleveland, Ohio, which has twice as many bites as Wichita per 100,000. Stevens said the City of Cleveland just added $1 million to the Animal Control budget in addition to the $1.5 million already in their budget. He said Cleveland is determined to get this problem behind them. He also presented information from State Farm Insurance on how dog bites add to the cost of insurance. He also shared a letter that one of his neighbors received from the postal service stating their service was going to be suspended due to a dog. He said it was discovered that the substitute mail carrier had stuck his hand in the fence to pet the dog and it bit him. This behavior is against postal service regulations, so the threat of losing mail service was retracted. Stevens said these neighbors got lucky because the post office was threatening to suspend service from 2800 to 3100 Aloma Street. Stevens asked Sarah Coffman to present her analysis of the data provided by Municipal Court regarding dismissed charges for unaltered pit bulls. She said in 2010 the guilty rate was alright, but as the years have gone by, the dismissal rate has continued to increase with a 97% dismissal rate in 2016. She said this is a huge problem and it’s completely undermining the staff at animal control. She said in her opinion there hasn’t been a decrease in pit bulls since the code was written and there’s got to be a reason why. She said there are four things needed to further understand this.  How many pit bulls came into animal control between 2010 and 2016  How many dog bites occurred between 2010 and 2016  How many spay-neuter vouchers did the City issue between 2010 and 2016  How many of those vouchers were redeemed She said in 2014 just over 1300 pit bulls came into the facility; but only 291violations were written. She said this number is disproportionate. She said she couldn’t come up with reasons why the numbers are the way they are. “Why have there been 245 fewer citations written in 2016 than in 2010? Maybe Animal Control is being self-fulfilling. Why are they going to write a ticket if they know they’re going to walk into the courtroom and then walk right back out? What’s the point? It’s just a waste of tax-payer money. Why has the dismissal rate increased by 54%. “ Page 3 of 5  Animal Control Advisory Board Minutes April 19, 2017 www.wichita.gov She said she’s not familiar with how the prosecutor’s work, so she doesn’t know if the prosecutors are actually checking to make sure the dog was fixed before dismissing the charge. She also asked if the court is dismissing the same offenders over and over again. Coffman said the City Code needs to be rewritten to include a minimum fine that the prosecutor nor the Judge have the option to dismiss. She said if you make it a minimum standard that the court cannot dismiss in any situation you will put the fear in people. She said the fine should still apply even if the people comply and get their dog fixed. Coffman said she doesn’t think the court system as a whole is giving the support to Animal Control that they deserve and it’s definitely putting a strain on her rescue group, Beauties and Beasts, K-9 Karma and the Kansas Humane Society, and they are tired of picking up the slack for other people not holding other people accountable. She closed by saying that is her personal and professional take on the data. Lt. Schroeder pointed out that not all of the animals in the Shelter come from Wichita. He said many come from other areas where it is not illegal to have an unaltered animal. He said comparing shelter numbers to citations is like comparing apples and oranges because some of the animals come from locations where it’s perfectly legal to have unaltered pits. Judy Hill said Donte Martin told her if a case was scheduled on the docket then the prosecutor could not at that point dismiss it. She said she thinks there’s something going on between the Judge and the prosecutor. She said the Judge is appointed by the City Council and if we don’t like what he’s doing let’s do something about it. John Stevens talked about visiting Environmental Court with George Theoharis and two Council Members. Action Taken: John Stevens/Hagman made a motion that the Board approve for him, George Theoharis and Sarah Coffman meet with the City Manager and request that Robin Bradley continue her initial study of animal control and study the court process. Motion passed: 8-0 Trap, Neuter, Release (TNR) Committee Judy Handley, committee chair, met and reviewed the results from the TNR study. She said there weren’t any big surprises. She shared some of the results from the survey. She said it’s obvious the people of Wichita want the City to do something about feral cats, but they want it to be a humane solution. She said the committee has no recommendations at this time. Action Taken: Receive and file. NEW BUSINESS Update on dangerous dog ordinance changes Capt. Brent Allred gave the Board an update on where they are with the dangerous dog ordinance changes. He directed Board members to the section regarding dangerous dog levels and told Stevens if the committee has additional changes, they need to get those submitted soon. Stevens said they had a number of changes that came out of the last meeting. Allred reviewed the four levels that were recommended by the dangerous dog committee. Action Taken: Receive and file. Page 4 of 5  Animal Control Advisory Board Minutes April 19, 2017 www.wichita.gov BOARD AGENDA Teresa Burks said she received one neighborhood complaint regarding a loss of mail service. She also commented that she was surprised that the Animal Control Advisory Board wasn’t asked for input regarding the changes to allow bikes at Pawnee Prairie Park. She said there are very limited places where people can ride their horses and if you start allowing bicycles around the horse trails it becomes a very dangerous situation. PUBLIC AGENDA Off Agenda items Lonny Wright said he objects that citizens aren’t being allowed to comment on agenda items. He said he raised his hand on the first item and wasn’t recognized. He said there were others who wanted to speak and City Ordinance states the public should be allowed to speak on each agenda item. The Chair acknowledged his concern. A citizen said she would like for there to be an ordinance that makes it illegal to transport an animal in the back of a pick-up. Lt. Schroeder suggested that she call her State Representative because if it were to become a State law, then it would be mandatory. A citizen reported that she had lost mail service due to a dog in the neighborhood and she wanted to know if the dog was going to be addressed. Capt. Allred said if she would provide her address they would check on the status of the case. Another citizen said in her neighborhood, the postal service only stopped delivering to the one house that had the problem dog. This first citizen said 46 residences in her area had lost mail service due to this one dog. Mark Eby, Kansas Humane Society, said he would like to have an open forum on what no kill means to the Wichita community. He said WAS and KHS are criticized for not being no kill, and in his opinion there is no such thing as an open admissions/no kill shelter. He said the city of Salina defines no kill as a 10% save rate and there are a lot of other shelters around the country that use the 90% mark. He said there are 100 definitions of what no kill means and he thinks it would be good for Wichita to define what it means for this community. He said KHS would be willing to host the forum. George Theoharis said he went to the Pawnee Prairie Park meeting and that Lonny Wright was also there. He said they are looking for a solution so the bike paths don’t interfere with the horse trails. Capt. Allred announced that the request for proposal for the Shelter went out on Monday. Scheduled Items Midge Grinstead, Humane Society of the United States, introduced Katherine Lynch who talked about some upcoming training opportunities. In July they will be doing a week long training for law enforcement. There will also be training provided to rescue groups in August– all of the training is free. George Theoharis asked how many cats Judy Handley considers to be a cat colony. She said the committee decided that five to six cats is the appropriate number. He asked about higher numbers and she said that would be cat hoarding. Theoharis took an impromptu survey on how many people would want a cat colony living next door. Meeting Adjourned Guests Lonny Wright Midge Grinstead Arlene Piatkowski Shonda Koob Page 5 of 5