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Aimee Wall is a UNC professor in the School of Government and an animal control expert. At an Orange County Board of Commissioners meeting on June 4, commissioners requested that the county’s animal control ordinance be revised to unify animal ordinances in Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough.

Staff writer Aaron Cranford spoke with Wall about the county’s animal control laws, terminology used in the laws and the proposed Unified Animal Control Ordinance.

Daily Tar Heel: What problems exactly is the advisory board addressing?

Aimee Wall: One of the issues they are dealing with right now is how to go about combining the animal control ordinances that are in place in Orange County. Right now, we have an Orange County ordinance, a Carrboro ordinance, a Chapel Hill ordinance and I think even a Hillsborough ordinance. They would like to create a unified ordinance — where they would take pieces from all of those local laws and put them in a single, county-wide ordinance.

DTH: How will the proposed ordinance help quicken service?

AW: The goal here is to create the unified ordinance, and then go in and make other changes to the ordinance over time that are needed. So this ordinance is not going to be the end of the discussion and I think that is where they see the advisory coming in and playing a role. The advisory committee and the citizens will help figure out what is working and what is not working. What kind of differences need to be in place that aren’t for rural versus urban areas of the county.

DTH: What options are being looked into regarding nuisance animals, such as a dog that damages property?

AW: That is usually part of any ordinance. It is different from the state law — I don’t have something that I can point to and show you this is how state law does it and this is how the local government can do it. It is pretty much wide open. Local governments can do whatever they want in respect to nuisance animals. Some jurisdictions are very specific in the kinds of behavior they regulate, and others are much more general and leave a lot of discretion to the animal control department, but I do not know what direction Orange County is thinking about going in.

DTH: How will the county define a dangerous animal?

AW: That is up to them to figure out … The way the state law handles that issue is that they say a dog is not going to be declared “dangerous” if someone is coming on your property — trespassing on your property — and the dog bites them, under the state law, that dog is not going to be considered a dangerous dog or a potentially dangerous dog.

So whatever they decide to do in the local ordinance it has to be comparable to what the state law does. They can’t make it weaker than what the state law has. They could make it stronger.

DTH: Do other areas have issues with unifying ordinances?

AW: Absolutely. I think one of the long standing challenges for animal control in our state is how piecemeal it is, and that is the thing they are trying to address here. We do have a very patchwork approach to animal control law in our state, and so counties and cities are always struggling with who is responsible for what. Who is going to pay for what? Which law is going to apply in this situation? So, I think it is a perennial challenge. It is definitely something where we have a little bit of state law in some areas, but most of it is left to the local governments, and as a result we have a real patchwork.

city@dailytarheel.com

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