Lakewood Public Safety Committee Meeting – October 14, 2025
Lakewood Public Safety Committee Meeting – October 14, 2025
The Public Safety Committee met on October 14, 2025, to approve prior minutes, continue deliberations on the Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) ordinance for community cats, and receive a presentation from the Fire Chief on the planned purchase of a new fire engine. The meeting included public testimony from animal welfare advocates, extensive discussion on registration and training requirements, and a detailed overview of the fire engine procurement process.
Consent Calendar
- Approval of Minutes: The committee approved the minutes from the September 15, 2025 Public Safety Committee meeting by unanimous voice vote.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Nancy Binder (Chair, Lakewood Animal Safety and Welfare Advisory Board – LaSwab): Expressed the board’s preference that registration not be required for TNR volunteers, citing concerns that it would deter participation, and recommended that training be recommended rather than mandatory. She also noted that funding should be kept outside the ordinance to allow flexibility for grants and city subsidies.
- Megan Galleda (Community Cats Director, Citizens Committee for Lakewood's Animals and Shelter – CLAWS): Stated that required registration and proof of training would be a barrier to TNR efforts, as there is no universal training program. She argued that good Samaritans would stop participating if these requirements were in the ordinance, and that other cities do not impose such rules. She urged the committee to remove mandatory registration and training, warning that she and others would cease TNR work in Lakewood if the provisions remained.
- Law Director Vargo and Assistant Law Director Jennifer Swallow: Defended the registration requirement as a minimal, non‑burdensome measure (name, address, phone, trapping locations, electronic signature) intended to protect the city from bad actors and ensure accountability. They noted that the training requirement had been softened to “training as approved by the Animal Control Supervisor.”
Discussion Items
- Trap‑Neuter‑Return (TNR) Ordinance (Ordinance No. 20‑2025): The committee discussed a substitute version of the ordinance (dated October 13, 2025) that removed the city’s financial responsibility for the program. Chair Strebig acknowledged ongoing concerns about unsanitary conditions at Davis Court and indicated that additional language from animal‑law expert Dana Pinella would be reviewed. The main point of contention was whether registration and training should be mandatory or voluntary. LaSwab and CLAWS opposed mandatory registration, while the Law Department emphasized its value for oversight. The committee agreed to study the proposed language from Ms. Pinella and continue refining the ordinance at the next meeting.
- Fire Engine Purchase Presentation: Fire Chief Fairbanks presented the upcoming replacement of Engine No. 4 (a 2005 Sutfin pumper). He explained the capital planning process, the 25‑year replacement cycle, and the current market challenges (private‑equity consolidation, 2‑5 year build times, price increases). Three manufacturers were evaluated: Pierce ($1,437,620, 48‑51 month build time), Sutfin ($1,460,860, 28‑30 month build time), and Seagrave ($1.35–$1.45 million, 50 month build time). Chief Fairbanks recommended Sutfin due to its shorter timeline, local service, and proven track record. The committee discussed the importance of firefighter safety, the idle‑reduction system ($32,300), and the need to place the order early to avoid delays.
Key Outcomes
- Minutes Approved: Unanimously approved.
- Substitute Ordinance Adopted as Working Document: The committee voted to substitute the latest TNR ordinance version (dated October 13, 2025) as the new working document.
- TNR Ordinance Continued: The committee will incorporate feedback from LaSwab and Dana Pinella’s model language, particularly regarding unsanitary conditions and registration/training requirements, and will review a revised version at the next meeting.
- Fire Engine Presentation Received and Filed: The committee voted to receive and file the communication from Fire Chief Fairbanks, acknowledging the planned 2028 capital purchase and the ongoing procurement process.
Meeting Transcript
everybody I'm gonna call the public safety committee to order on October 20th at 634 p.m. Our first order of business is to approve the minutes from the September 15, 2025 public safety meeting. I'll make a motion for that. Do I have a second? Second. A motion's been made and seconded any um comments or confusion or disagreement. None. All in favor? All right. And that motion passes. The next uh motion I'd like to make is to substitute the latest TRN version from the law department that was dated 1013 as our new working document. That is the one that removes the responsibility of the city for financing this program. Second is that is that the one that's on that's the one that's the agenda or that's the one you sent that's the one that I meant I sent to you and Cindy. And it's the one in the agenda. That's the one agenda okay. So I'd like to make a motion to substitute that version as our working document. Second all in favor? Aye any disagreement and that motion passes all right. So I want to look at at this document um just for a minute we have um some of the members from LeSwab in the community here with the law department and the animal control officer Mr. Crumley are here as well we're getting very close. I feel like we're getting close. And I want to say first of all thank you to Jennifer and Law Director Vargo for all your work and all your patience with this we just want to get this right we just want to get this right the way that you know we don't have to go oh gosh we're gonna have to go back in six months because we missed something here and I think with the input that we got from um Dana Panella at our last meeting she gave us some insight into a couple areas that we definitely want to look at specifically unsanitary conditions because from what I understand there's still a problem on Davis court even though measures have been taken there to control the cat population it's still out of control so we want to put some um information together some verbiage together to make sure that if unsanitary unsanitary conditions are are there that we can do something about it. So that's that's one of the pieces and some of it was just some simple wording one of the things that she had requested was if the animal controlvisor has to have a dog treated to save the life of the dog then the owner has to pay for that when they come to pick it up so those those just kind of detail type things so we have just a little bit of work to do left on this one but I think you know moving to this version will give us uh will give us a little more clarity and we'll add a couple more things do you all want to say anything from LaSwab go ahead please come on up I'm supposed to make you got it now it's supposed to stay green right okay I'm Nancy Binder I am the chair of LaSwab uh our we have a very engaged meeting on TNR uh it's it's a issue we have been working for over a year on Lakewood is a city that's very condensed we have a large population of cats found out how well um doing a program works with resident cats the problem with outdoor cats is they keep breeding and that's one of the reasons for this ordinance we had a couple of things in the ordinance you gave us that we discussed at the meeting Cindy I don't know if they have changed out but I'm going to just do a short snippet of that go right ahead. Okay. Uh on registration the city wanted it required you wanted to change to recommended our board would prefer not having um the registration at all because they feel it would turn away large groups and how do you control that the other thing about registration is we have three ACOs a town of our size for um ACOs is having a group of three to five ACOs tell me what ACO is animal control office. A town of our size for ACOs is having a group of three to five ACOs. Tell me what ACO is. Thank you. I'm sorry. Gary runs a really good but tight ship. There's always something going on. There's always 30 cats or kittens or hopefully then another waterberry beagle. Davis Court, which is what we always use as our example because Davis Court got that up with their feral cats, their community cats. They brought them in, and by law, Gary had to dispense with them. There are over 50 cats. And our ACOs are all very kind people. It is not the fun part of their job at all. But since uh TNR is to reduce the population, and it has it does work. You TNR them, put them back in their colony. The colony dies off because they're not reproducing, and other cats in this way don't come in and repopulate the area. Right now, Davis Court is getting repopulated because a vacuum was made and cats are just coming in. The uh funds that you said about getting out of the ordinance, it's probably best to have funds out of the ordinance depending on how it goes, but there could be grants that could take care of things the city could fund, like they did the spay and neuter program as we have this. We have a population that over 500 cats of residents couldn't afford to spay or neuter their own cat. They're not going to take their funds and spay and neuter a community cat, no matter how irritating it is to them. So I recommend that in the ordinance, but outside the ordinance, there's flexibility to get it subsidized in some way, and flexibility to have whoever writes grants for the city help us find grants. One of the advantages is that to get the money from the city or the grants, they would have to apply through Gary. Since there's no official training site that gives, you know, here you've been trained, here's your certificate. That's a hard one on how do you show your trained, how do you get it to Gary that you've been trained? There can be a link from uh his website and just say, here you go. It could have a little click on it that you've been there.
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