The Sealy City Council discussed action regarding the existing animal ordinance and nuisances during last Tuesday’s regular zoom meeting. Following a lengthy discussion between council members, the council tabled any action on the issue.

Councilmember Place 1 Dee Anne Lerma questioned how the City of Sealy is enforcing the licensing requirement. Although cats and dogs within Sealy’s city limits must have their rabies vaccination and bring a copy to Sealy City Hall to receive their license, Lerma was unsure how licensing could be enforced.

Interim City Manager Warren Escovy said that it requires citizen complaints regarding issues like stray cats being fed or citizens that own four or more dogs.

“It is hard for us to know if there are three, four, or five dogs or if people are feeding cats,” Escovy explained. “Some of these were issues before we had an Animal Control Officer, but we have one now.”

Lerma brought up the point that she does not think most of Sealy’s citizens know some of the pet rules and brought up adding that information to the City of Sealy website.

“I would bet that the average citizen does not know they are limited in the number of pets when they move into town or maybe even after they have been here a long time,” said Lerma. “Every pet is required a rabies vaccination and they are required to obtain an annual license.”

Councilmember Place 3 Sandra Vrablec echoed Lerma’s concerns and added that she would like to see something potentially added to water bill letters about dogs in Sealy that are not on leashes. Lerma responded by saying that cats are also required to be on leashes according to the ordinance.

However, Sealy Mayor Carolyn Bilski said the city has a leash law now but being on leashes is not always enforced.

“As a pet owner of a cat, I have seen where people have had collars on their cats, they get hung up on a chain-link fence and it is not a pretty thing. We’ve got to be a little cognizant of some of these things (in ordinances) that do not really make sense,” Bilski said.

Councilmember Place 6 Adam Burttschell said that he did not want to go overboard regarding the animal ordinance.

“I think there are obvious safety concerns with some things. My other concern would be, do we have the ability to even oversee a lot of the stuff that we are talking about currently,” Burttschell said.

Councilmember Place 2 Chris Noack said that he agreed something needs to be done, but he leaned with Burttschell.

“People that truly take care of their animals are taking care of their animals. They are spending a lot of money every year to get those vaccinations,” Noack said. “You are only going to make it more difficult for the people that are already taking care of their animals. Now when I go and get (my pet) their rabies (shot), I also need to remember to go to city hall and purchase a license that I have to keep up annually.”

Noack said if the council’s goal is to limit the number of strays in Sealy, they should possibly target those who are not spaying and neutering their animals.

“That is the only way we are going to eliminate some of the strays that we have out on the streets,” Noack said. “I understand that there are citizens out there that are having this issue on the daily and I do think that something needs to be done. I just think that we need to be cautious and make sure that we are not affecting those people that are already taking care of their animals more than the people that are not taking care of their animals.”

Councilmember Place 4 Jennifer Sullivan said there are already controls in place and referenced a specific complaint that members of the council are getting regarding a neighbor’s dogs and roosters and read from the ordinance to the council.

According to city ordinances, “Any animal which barks, whines or howls in excessive or continuous or untimely fashion in any building, room, cage, kennel, yard, or any other place or facility where animals are kept or harbored which is not maintained in a clean and sanitary condition,” results in a public nuisance.

“I do think we have pretty good measures in place to address the problems that the individuals are having now. We just need to be more diligent about doing that,” Sullivan said.

Councilmember Place 5 Larry Koy brought up previous programs in Sealy where pet owners could bring their pets to be vaccinated and said that the council should look into it again.

While the discussion had been primarily centered around dogs and cats within Sealy, Lerma said a pig farm on Gebhardt Road should also be addressed. However, the farm is located in the extraterritorial jurisdiction of Sealy.

Sealy City Attorney Timothy Kirwin said they had passed ordinances that said you could enforce nuisances within 5,000 feet of your ETJ.

“Because you are a home rule city, you have that power. We passed that ordinance and we have prosecuted the smell ordinance, the smell violation and the nuisance violation of the pig rescue,” Kirwin said. “They technically have complied with all their deferred conditions but there may be future violations coming.”

Bilski said she visited with Austin County Judge Tim Lapham since this is more of a county issue with the city also having few opportunities to enforce the nuisance ordinance.

City of Sealy Chief of Police Jay Reeves spoke about how the officers handle the various animal complaints ranging from dogs at large to noise complaints.

“The issue with a lot of these calls is the people will call saying that the dogs are barking and by the time we get there, the animals are not barking and they have taken them inside,” Reeves said. “We explain to them about the ordinance and the barking dogs. We just give them a verbal warning at that time. If it is a repetitive call that we keep getting called back to the same residence or the same animal, we will start issuing citations.”

Reeves said that public information is always helpful in response to Lerma asking if they should communicate with the public about the animal ordinances.

“The majority of the time, we are not having people just disregard the law. The problem is that they do not know there is a law. They do not know that they have to have a city license to have the dogs. Most people understand that they have to have a rabies shot for their animals,” Reeves said. “A Lot of this is communication. These people are not blatantly avoiding the city ordinance or the laws. They just are not aware there is (an ordinance).”

Reeves said he’d hate to add more ordinances or laws because what is on the books is sufficient for 99.9% of Sealy residents.