Targeting the wrong people, defining "success", and a lack of public information -- Case Study: Omaha

Last October, the city of Omaha passed a new ordinance regarding "dangerous dogs" for their community. Some of the ideas were good and some were awful. And the real results of the ordinance really have not become a part of public knowledge.

The ordinance featured a lot of stuff -- you can read more about it here -- but the gist of it is:

1) No dog may be tethered outside for more than 15 minutes at a time, unless on a trolly system, in which case the time limit is 1 hour.

2) A Designation for Dangerous and Potentially Dangerous Dogs

3) A classification for Reckless Owners

4) Increased Licensing fees

5) Requirements for owners of 'pit bulls' -- including fencing, leash length, muzzling requirements, insurance requirements, age of owner requirements and ways to avoid the muzzling requirements if responsible dog owners pass the Canine Good Citizen Class.

Most of the laws went into effect on October 15, but the pit bull muzzle law went into effect Jan 1 to give people the opportunity

My opinions on each of the ordinances (some good, some bad) was included in the previous post, but essentially I (and several city council members actually) stressed at the time that while some of the elements (like the Dangerous/potentially dangerous and the reckless owner designations) were good -- most of the requirements for the pit bull ownership was targeting mostly responsible dog owners. That essentially, anyone who was going to go through the work to get the Canine Good Citizen designation to avoid all of the breed specific legislation was never a problem in the first place.  But the new requirements were just a series of hoops for good dog owners, and tying up animal control resources (animal control and shelter services for Omaha are contracted out to the Nebraska Humane Society) that were being wasted on responsible owners.

Meanwhile, these resoures were going to be pulled from personnel that would be out dealing with truly irresponsible dog owners - -who make the minority of the dog-owning population of all breeds -- and would cause more problems than it would help.

And it has, depending on who you ask.

At the beginning of July, NHS released their statistics for the first 6 months of the year. They include:

-- 90 citations to pit bull owners who were unable to provide proof of insurance (note -- I've had conversations with several people in Omaha who have had a terrible time trying to secure the insurance requirement - so this may be less of a result of "irresponsibility" and more of a result of lack of availability)

-- 33 tethering citations

-- 9 reckless owner declarations (3 appeals were granted)

-- 70 potentially dangerous dog declarations were issued (4 appeals granted)

-- 62 dogs took the Canine Good Citizen Class.

Based on these numbers, NHS VP of Field Operations Mark Langan called the ordinances a success.

"The new ordinances seem to be doing their job.  Animal control officers have been aggressive in enforcing the law and, for the most part, the public has been cooperating with the law. But occassionally we are dealing with some angry dog owners."

However, the ordinance wasn't designed to hand out more citations -- it was created with the idea in mind of IMPROVING PUBLIC SAFETY. It seemed curious to me that the whole number of dog bites never came up. THAT should be the measure of success. Not citations. Are people safer because dog bites are going down?

Um, no.

According to numbers I receive yesterday, the total number of dog bites for the first 6 months of 2009 was 449 bites recorded.  In the same time period in 2008, it was 328.  For those doing the math, that's a 37% increase in dog bites in the first 6 months of the year following the passing of their new ordinance. By comparison, this comes after a couple of consecutive years of decreases:

2006 dog bites: 916

2007 dog bites: 821

2008 dog bites: 808

This year so far we're at a 37% increase.

Meanwhile, the city is paid out $50,000 more money to NHS to enforce the ordinance in 2008, and increased their contract $75,000 in 2009 to enforce the new ordinance. So at this point, the citizens of Omaha are out $125,000 to see an INCREASE of dog bites.

For an ordinance that was designed to improve public safety, I wouldn't call that a success.

Meanwhile, the city and its current mayor, Jim Suttle (who voted against the ordinance) are staring at an estimated $11 million budget shortfall in 2010.  Some of the things being considered to make up for the budget shortfall include: pay freezes for civilian city employees, pay freezes for police and fire employees, pay freezes for the mayor, staff and city council, and some increased fees.

I have a suggestion to help:

1) Improve the tethering ordinance so that it prohibits "unsupervised" tethering...this 15 minute rule is pretty draconian and doesn't really solve the problem. The problem is people who use tethering as a primary form of containment, so focus on those people.

2) Keep the dangerous/vicious dog designations -- and focus energies on enforcing these laws.

3) Keep the reckless dog owner laws -- there is likely a very small percentage of dog owners who are causing the majority of the problems...and this law will help there.

Laws 2 & 3 are similar to laws passed in Minneapolis and St. Paul in 2007 that led to significant decreases in dog bites in their first year of use.

4) Get rid of all of the 'pit bull' specific laws -- if the dog isn't "dangerous" or "vicious" based on those classifications based on the dog's actual behavior, NHS officials should not be wasting resources dealing with the dogs...which is taking away from their work on the dogs that are a problem based on their actual behaviors.

5) By cutting out the breed-specific laws, they can cut back the fees to NHS so they can give it back to the struggling budget.

6) Rewrite the NHS contract so that NHS's numbers are subject to Sunshine Law Requests.  Right now, NHS is a 501c3 organization and their numbers are not subject to the state Sunshine Law requests. The city is paying them $700,000 in taxpayer funds this year, and taxpayers have no way of looking at the NHS numbers.  This gives them the ability define success any way they want (by citations, not bites for instance).  Their numbers should be subject to open records request.  It would be unfathomable to have a police force that doesn't have to provide crime statistics...and yet, NHS, which has police powers, is not subject to the same scrutiny. If they have nothing to hide, they should have no problem with this.  If they do have a problem with it, one has to wonder what it is they are trying to hide.

In October, the ordinance will have been in existence for 1 year. I think the early results are enough to say that given the current economy, the ordinance is too costly and too ineffective to stick with and that some changes need to be made. 

Comments

[Leah Bond]

Fantastic!
Thank you for the information.

[Will]

Thank you for the information and keeping up with statistics from other cities, I know it can be time consuming.

I live in Omaha and agree that it targets the wrong group of people. I have one full bred APBT and a mix. I used to walk my dogs 3 times a day. Now due to the ordinance I have a fenced in yard and am lucky to walk my dogs once a week because I choose not to subject them or myself to wearing a muzzle and have to drive outside the city limits. I have not taken the CGC test because my full breed is not altered and I'm upset because who are they to tell me what to do with my property. What about the other owners in my area that have show dogs that cannot be altered or cannot be shown? It is unfair legislation and is ONLY effecting responsible owners.

[avabee]

Thanks for the info. May I ask where you got the dog bite numbers? I'd love to be able to take a look at them. (Not because I don't believe you, but rather so that I can use them to make a case.)