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Salem Committee discusses changes to animal ordinance

SALEM — The Salem Rules and Ordinances Committee further discussed changes to the city’s animal ordinance in its meeting last Tuesday.

The city’s animal ordinance had previously been discussed at length by the committee in October and December, with concerns raised that the ordinance’s current language, which specifically disallows certain species of animal from being kept in the city rather than categories of animals, and with a lack of any mechanism to grant variances for specific cases in the wake of a request by a city resident to keep goats as part of a 4-H project. In Tuesday’s meeting Councilman Ron Zellers and City Law Director Brooke Zellers presented proposed changes to the ordinance’s language based on a similar ordinance from Columbus.

The proposed update would eliminate section 505.15 from the ordinance which prohibits the keeping of bees within the city limits “which cause annoyance to other person or property damage,” and removes the word “domestic” from sections of the ordinance which cover injuring or poisoning animals.

Section 505.13 (b), which has drawn the bulk of criticism of the ordinance, would be updated from reading “no person shall keep any swine, sheep or goats in the City of Salem except those living inside a residence inhabited by the owner. Horse, cattle and chickens may not be kept within 150 feet of any residence, other than the residence of the person keeping such animal or fowl anywhere in the city” to instead read “no person shall keep any swine in the city of Salem except those living inside a residence inhabited by the owner.” The section would also have a new subsequent paragraph added which specifies that “no person shall keep or harbor any animal that is not universally recognized as a domesticated animal on any property within the city of Salem” and defines a domesticated animal as “those animals universally recognized as pets or companion animals, farm and livestock animals, and those used for security.”

While not part of the proposed ordinance language presented to the committee, Ron Zellers suggested that an additional section be added which specifies that the keeping of any animals that would not otherwise be permitted by the ordinance be evaluated by the health department on a case-by-case basis which would see the prospective owner apply for a permit from the health department similar Columbus’ ordinance.

“The person that has the animal calls the health department, they send them a preliminary form, set up a time, someone from the health department does an inspection, and the person with the animal says ‘this is what I want to do,’ and the person from the health department says ‘maybe it’s better if we do this,’ it’s not one size fits all,” said Ron Zellers.

Councilman Jeff Stockman said that he had spoken with Health Commissioner Kayla Crowl about the possibility and that she felt the department would be able to develop a permitting process for non-domesticated outdoor animals including a permitting fee to cover the costs of the inspection without an issue.

“They could set up an application for it that would explain the expectations of the homeowner, and it would be an application for the house not the animal, meaning you don’t have five permits for five chickens, you’ve got one permit for that house for five chickens,” said Crowl.

Stockman also noted that implementing a permitting process would help the city better track any non-domesticated animals within the city, and that the annual nature of a permitting process would help to ensure they were being kept in appropriate conditions.

Mayor Cyndi Baronzzi Dickey suggested that should the committee decide to move forward with the addition of a permitting process to be administered by the health department the ordinance should be sent to the health board first to ensure that the board feels the department is capable of and willing to accept the additional responsibility.

“Just because one person says you have the manpower to do it doesn’t necessarily mean that you do, and right now we’re behind on our regular housing inspections, so I would like the health board to have some say on that and have time to make their own guidelines and references for following those guidelines before we would ever get this passed,” said Dickey. “My fear is you guys say, ‘yeah, we’ll do this,’ and it becomes law, and the health department doesn’t have anything set up.”

It was ultimately decided that Brooke Zellers would further revise the ordinance with the suggested section establishing a permitting process for further review prior to the city council’s next meeting.

The rules and ordinances committee will meet next at 6 p.m. Jan. 21.

mahart@mojonews.com

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