Meeting of the Mobile City Council.

I'm the chair, Gina Gregory.

My other two committee members are Councilman Penn and Councilwoman Ingram.

And as you see, everybody except for council member Ben Reynolds is here today.

So any amendments that may be offered for uh discussion will just have to come from this group if there are any.

And I'm saying that because I I know that councilman Reynolds uh apparently anyway has some amendments that he wants to look at.

So what we're doing today is um really starting at the beginning for uh for a lot of people uh looking at the proposed amendment to the animal ordinance that we have in the city.

And I had mentioned um last week or the week before that the council members have had an opportunity to talk with the administration and hear uh information about why this amendment was brought forward, how they got where they are in the uh drafting of this.

Um we thought it was important to just share with everybody else so that you all knew, you know, the whys and wherefores of this uh ordinance and or the amended ordinance, and uh we'll just go from there.

We have given you all what it what we refer to as the red line version of the ordinance so far.

We also have passed out some information that we have a uh accrued, which are uh concerns, suggestions and questions that we have gotten from people in the community about the ordinance.

Um I also mentioned that there's even uh a complete uh rewrite of the ordinance within this information.

So we have a lot.

So today is a working meeting.

The council will hear information, we'll discuss among ourselves and see where we go from there.

And I have asked people in the in the audience here too if they will write down any concerns that they hear or other questions they have and provide them to us.

I foresee we will take another couple of weeks and maybe come back with another meeting before we get to the point where we think that we're actually ready to put something on the agenda again.

It will be on the agenda next week because that's just the way the calendar falls and the way he we have uh laid it over so far.

But um I am guessing, and and I think I'm right, uh my colleagues may agree with me that we'll just lay it over next week and uh come back at a later date with something that is a little bit more final.

So with that, I'm going to ask um Robert and or Joe, I don't know, Robert.

I'll just let you and your team come up and if you will just take us through from the beginning, Robert, and you know, how we got here, what you all were looking at, and how you came up with some of the things on here that you have that you know a lot of people are really asking about.

Red means on, right?

Okay, I know we had that discussion earlier.

Oh, Beth, red means on, yeah.

All right.

So good afternoon.

You know, every so often, every couple of years, we like to do a standard review of the ordinances to make sure they're keeping up with the the times and what we're seeing in the community, what's a concern for the community, what's not a concern for the community.

And we go there and we uh we look at what needs to be updated as far as language or maybe new ordinances, or maybe we need to match state law.

Uh, but we go through and and and do a comprehensive review of everything that's in there.

The last time we did this was in 2022.

Uh so that was about four years ago.

Uh and we have several goals that we uh look at when we're doing this.

One, we look to ensure public safety.

How can we strengthen the ordinances to ensure that uh the people are protected from dogs that maybe lose roaming or aggressive or otherwise?

Uh we look to reduce nuisance behavior.

How can we improve quality of life?

Uh controlled barking dogs, smells, uh, things like that.

Uh, then we look to improve uh animal welfare.

What can we do to ensure that the animals are being treated the way they should be treated, uh should be treated, excuse me.

We do that.

We encourage proper pet ownership, and then finally we make sure that we're not conflicting with any state law uh that is out there, such as the recent Bose Law for tethering that we just that the state just passed a few weeks ago.

Uh over the last couple of weeks, we've heard from many of you, the city council and many of the citizens inside the city about changes that they would like to see in the ordinances or things they don't agree with, or uh other concerns they may have.

And we have gone through and we think we we believe we have met most of those concerns and addressed most of those concerns.

So I'm just gonna take a few minutes to uh talk about some of the changes from the last iteration to the current iteration that you're looking at right now.

So the first thing we did was we uh altered the definition uh surrounding high-risk animals.

Uh so the previous ordinance listed out specific breeds uh in that ordinance that were based off of uh breeds commonly found uh restricted in homeowners' insurance policies.

Uh they would not be covered under such uh certain policies.

And you know, the thought process is kind of if our citizens are attacked or injured by one of those dogs, they really have no recourse uh past that, especially when the animal owners uh policies won't cover them.

Uh that definition now it takes out uh the takes out the breed list, it also takes out the word exotic animals from the list, and it is now replaced strictly with monkeys, snakes, ferrets, and any poisonous or venomous animals.

Uh tied into that a little bit is uh the definition for under restraint.

We have altered that language to clearly indicate uh that within a building constitutes uh restraint.

So if it's inside of your house, inside of a store, inside of a vet clinic, that constitutes being under physical restraint.

Three, we've altered the hoarding ordinance to exempt households if they meet certain requirements.

These requirements are that all animals on the property have to be uh spayed or neutered.

All cats or dogs on the property have to have current proof of rabies vaccinations, which already required by state law.

All cats or dogs have to have a city license if it is required for that animal.

Now, remember, there is a microchipping ordinance that uh exempt some city licenses, but if they're required to have a city license because they don't have a microchip, they need to have that, and that the conditions created by those animals do not create either a public nuisance or any unsanitary conditions for them or their neighbors madam chair, is that it?

Yes, ma'am, that's it.

Okay, if you would though, um, I think people have asked, you know, why you came to the number on like hoarding and um how you came up with the um aggressive breed list.

And I know there's some questions about ferrets.