Since Marshalltown Mayor Joel Greer authorized the formation of an animal ordinance review committee back in May, the group has met a total of five times in hopes of strengthening current city codes and addressing issues pertaining to both dogs and cats within the community. On Tuesday night, the committee, which is comprised of Animal Rescue League of Marshalltown Executive Director Austin Gillis, Jodi Gillis, Karla Gould, City Clerk Alicia Hunter, Dr. Grant Jacobson, Wendy Reisinger, Jim Shaw, Marshalltown Police Department (MPD) Capt. Kiel Stevenson, City Councilor Gary Thompson and City Administrator Carol Webb, held its last meeting and finalized their recommendations to the city council, which are tentatively set to be discussed and voted on sometime early next year.

Speaking to the T-R on Thursday, Webb said the task force looked at the code “holistically” to see what was missing and what needed to be updated based on recent issues. One new recommendation is the addition of an “irresponsible owner” section to the city code stipulating that anyone convicted of three animal-related violations in a span of 12 months — whether that means letting a pet run loose, a dog bite incident or neglect — could be banned from owning pets within the city of Marshalltown for at least 24 months and be forced to apply for reinstatement at a later date.

Other proposals include requiring microchipping for dogs, allowing a Trap, Neuter, Return (TNR) program for feral cats that will be privately run and not funded through a city contract, “cleaning up” the vicious dog language in the code by clarifying incidents of provocation and limiting households to a total of three dogs other than licensed veterinarians and the animal shelter. There were discussions about limiting the number of cats to six and requiring animal licensing, but those proposals were ultimately removed from the final recommendations.

Currently, enforcement is a duty that falls on the MPD as the city does not have a dedicated animal control officer, and while Webb, Stevenson and Austin Gillis all expressed a desire to hire such an individual, it would ultimately have to be budgeted by the city council.

“We had one in Muscatine, and they really served their purpose,” Webb said.

Stevenson didn’t feel that any of the changes were major, but he does hope it will make the codes easier to enforce going forward.

“I think it’s just gonna make it a little more clear for the process and match more of the process that we prefer to do,” he said. “We would obviously love to be out of the animal enforcement business. It’s an unfortunate part of what we do, but if we had somebody that could focus on that. It is an issue in Marshalltown, which is not unique. Other towns deal with the same thing, but I spend a decent amount of my time dealing with animal stuff, and I think we could be more efficient in the way we handle animal stuff in the city.”

Animal control is a quality of life issue, Stevenson added, and he felt that the irresponsible pet owner designation was the “single best” thing to come out of the conversations.

“This allows us to have some sort of repercussions for that individual. I think we have an issue in the city with dogs being at large, and I don’t know that we’re unique (compared) to other cities, but when you have dogs getting loose and then biting people, it is a public safety issue and it’s a quality of life issue and we try to deal with these things,” he said. “We always talk about these. Every one of these cases comes down to the owner. We don’t blame the dog. This is an irresponsible owner that isn’t taking control of the dog and providing the socialization and the training and all of the things that go along with being a pet owner, and then they make it everybody else’s problem and we’re stuck trying to clean up the mess.”

The vast majority of owners aren’t the problem, Stevenson said, but the ordinances seek to deal with the small group of individuals who are creating the issues.

“This group was intended to bring people from the community together to have a wide viewpoint so it’s not just us trying to come up with what we want. We’re trying to get some other perspectives and some other ideas at the table, and ultimately, it’s gonna be up to the city council whether they want to take this as a whole or whether they want to take pieces of it or whatever,” he said. “But I just think that we’re moving in the right direction, and hopefully this makes it a little bit more efficient for us to enforce these things. And I guess we can all hope that at some point, we can have an animal warden that that’s what they do full-time.”

From the ARL’s perspective, Austin Gillis feels that the meetings were productive and that it was time to review outdated laws and ordinances, citing the strong collaborative relationship between the city, the MPD and the shelter.

“Anytime we have hurdles that are put up between us, it makes it more difficult for us to function, and right now we’re eliminating a lot of those hurdles,” he said. “So I see a definitive positive future when it comes to these animal ordinances.”

One of the most promising proposed changes he sees is accountability for the owners of stray, unvaccinated and untagged dogs running loose around town.

“Our biggest thing is we want to help Fluffy get home if Fluffy only gets out once, but if Fluffy gets out 17 times in a month, then we need to try to help you fix that. So I think these ordinances are gonna help us do that,” he said.

By eliminating some of the current “gray areas” in the code, Gillis hopes it will make enforcement easier for the MPD and add protections for the shelter to prevent people from dumping large numbers of pets there when no one is present or compelling animal control officers to take animals the owners simply don’t want anymore. He also fully endorsed the idea of hiring a full-time animal control officer in the future to serve as a liaison between the city, the MPD and the ARL.

“Not only is that going to eliminate a hurdle, but it’s also going to add a baton passer for us to really make this marathon go smoothly,” he said.

Gillis also noted that with a microchipping requirement for dogs being recommended to the council, the ARL recently passed out vouchers at the recent Day of the Dead festival at Midnight Garden, and the process can be completed at the shelter.

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Contact Robert Maharry at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.