Palmer relinquishes animal board powers

Aug. 14, 2005

DAWN DE BUSK\Frontiersman reporter

PALMER -- The Palmer City Council, at its Tuesday meeting, unanimously approved a plan to turn animal control board powers over to the Mat-Su Borough Animal Control Board.

Palmer Mayor John Combs told the story of a 75-pound male husky-wolf mix named Jazz-Bone that attacked and killed Popkorn, a 7-pound Yorkshire terrior, outside the smaller dog's home on New Year's Day. Before the city could quarantine the wolf hybrid, its owner had removed it from city limits.

"This creates an umbrella so owners can't move an offending dog from city to borough," Combs said.

The city Animal Control Board heard the case of Popkorn's owner, Jeanne Novosad, on Jan. 25 and classified Jazz-Bone as "vicious." The board allowed Jazz-Bone's owners, Anthony Nolin and Patricia Cunningham, to collect the dog from the shelter, with the stipulation that he be housed in a secure enclosure. He was taken to live in a city-approved pen at Wolf Country USA, a tourist attraction outside the city that advertises wolf viewing and puppies for sale.

The Palmer Police would still respond to reports of dog attacks on humans or other animals as well as barking-dog incidents, but in the future, the animals' owners will have their day in court before a borough board.

Currently, a municipal code, Title Six, creates a Catch 22, according to a memorandum from Palmer Police Sgt. Lance Ketterling.

Palmer Police officers have legal authority to cite animal owners living within city limits, However, residents who don't comply with the board's decisions are subject to civil penalties, an area in which the police department has no jurisdiction.

"Unless the city is prepared to take such cases to civil court (an expensive proposition at best), there are no real teeth behind the decisions of the board," Ketterling's memo read.

Sometime in September, an ordinance will be prepared to complete the switch, according to City Clerk Janette Bowers. The ordinance must be approved by both council and borough members. If the ordinance is passed, the Palmer Animal Board Control would become defunct, which is what members of the board have requested.

"The number of animal bites involving dogs who reside outside the city limits of Palmer, coupled with the ineffective civil process by which our findings are enforced, have left us in a position where the Palmer Animal Control Board is unable to be effective as a body," according to a letter the board presented to the council last month.

As an aside, to help with a larger workload, someone from the city of Palmer could sit on the animal control board during decisions about animals, according to Bowers. However, that plan was not part of the new ordinance and would be discussed with the borough, she said during a phone interview Thursday.

Pippel expressed reservations over the change.

"I'm the last guy to say let the borough take over something we do. This seems logical, and I hope we're not sorry later," he said.

Contact Dawn De Busk at 352-2252 or dawn.debusk@frontiersman.com.