Agenda - 09-04-2014 - 6a - Laserfiche WebLink

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6 1 Bob Marotto said he is hoping that the Board will provide staff direction tonight, so that 2 that steps can be taken to bring this back as a finished product. 3 Chair Jacobs suggested an outline be given of each issue. 4 5 Michelle Walker said the first issue is listed on page 7 as follows: 6 7 LIVESTOCK & PUBLIC NUISANCE 8 Affected section of proposed ordinance: Sec. 4-45. - Public nuisance. 9 Substitute the following language into the public nuisance section (Sec. 4-45) of the proposed 10 ordinance for (b) (6): 11 Except in the case of domestic livestock, any animal at large off the premises of the owner or 12 keeper. At large domestic livestock will be considered a public nuisance when it, in the 13 judgment of the Animal Services Director, or designee, presents an immediate public danger, is 14 destroying or damaging property, is violating property rights, or has been habitually at large. 15 16 Susan Elmore said historically there has been a need to update this portion of the 17 ordinance and this is a good time to do it. She said the ASAB has worked closely with the 18 Agricultural Preservation Board in getting input on what their recommendation would be for this 19 unified ordinance. She said this information is included in the abstract. 20 Chair Jacobs asked for a brief explanation of the change. 21 Susan Elmore said the change is that if there is livestock off of property, it is not 22 immediately designated as a public nuisance, and the farmer is not automatically fined. She 23 said it will instead be up to the Animal Services Director to determine if the animal presents an 24 immediate public danger, is destroying property, violating property rights, or has been habitually 25 at large. She said if there is a storm that takes down a fence and livestock gets loose, the 26 farmer will not be cited or fined for that. She said, on the other hand, if the fence stays down 27 for weeks and the animals continually leave the property, then the farmer would be fined. She 28 said these are the kind of issues that the Animal Services director will handle. 29 Bob Marotto said one principal difference is that there isn't presently a distinction within 30 the ordinance of livestock versus other animals. She said the language that has been 31 recommended gives much more detailed guidelines for decisions to be made about livestock. 32 Commissioner McKee said this seems to be a better fix, and it makes sense to better 33 define and highlight the differentiations. 34 Commissioner Price asked if it makes sense to put in some kind of timeline instead of 35 just leaving it up to Director's discretion as to how to distinguish one incident from another. She 36 asked if there would be any legal hassle if it was just the Director's discretion. 37 Bob Marotto said there is considerably more detail in this version than in the last 38 version. He said you want to have the flexibility to deal with the variety of issues that arises in 39 broad community like Orange County. He said he would defer the legal questions to the staff 40 attorney and the County attorney. 41 Annette Moore said the Director should have enough experience and judgment to make 42 these decisions. She said being too specific could create more problems. 43 Commissioner Dorosin said this discretion applies only to domestic livestock; he asked 44 about a scenario where a storm hits, and a tree takes out fence, and a dog gets out and is at 45 large. He asked if there is any discretion for that situation. 46 Bob Marotto said there can be discretion in all circumstances, but there were multiple 47 strong reasons why this needed to be specifically articulated for livestock. 48 Annette Moore said when you see the designation of discretion in one place and not in 49 another it would typically say to you that the director does not have discretion there. She said 50 this was originally why that language was there, but there were a lot of questions about whether