The draft for a new animal control ordinance in Junction City was tabled by the City Commission Tuesday night.

A committee has been working on completely re-writing the city’s current animal control code for over a year now and submitted the new code Tuesday.

During the public comment period of the commission meeting multiple residents spoke out on a section of the new ordinance that would limit the number of animals that would be allowed at a residence. The code would limit residents to only having five dogs, five cats, five ferrets, five domesticated rodents, five hedgehogs, three rabbits and a laundry list of other animals.

The common concern among the residents involved the number of dogs allowed and what happens to those who would not be compliant to the code if it were adopted. Shelly Mosley asked the commission,”Who is going to come in their and make me choose which animal, my furbaby, that I’m going to get rid of? How are you going to make my children choose which ones their going to keep?”

Another resident, Jim Fawcett said that he believes the ordinance is a great first step but there are some issues,” I was disappointed to learn that there wasn’t a grandfather clause for the number of people that own more than the limit of dogs.”

The commission spent nearly an hour discussing the ordinance. Part of the discussion included how a grandfather clause would work. Tim Brown, Chief Police, mentioned that they could mirror the same clause used when pit bulls were banned in the city back in the 1990’s where residents registered the animals they wanted grandfathered in. “We could set it up by appointment, when the animal control officers out, and take photographs of the animals that you want grandfathered in. It then goes into a database at the police department.”

He went on to say that they wont go back and check on them later, unless they are called to the location for another reason and if they find that they are still over the limit and one of the animals is not on the list, then the owner will be in violation of the ordinance.

There were other issues with the ordinance discussed which included a section that was not A.D.A. compliant as well the tethering of animals. In the end the commission elected to table the ordinance with direction to the committee working on the ordinance to address those issues.