Millville
council, dog breeder, still woofing over issues
By Jessica
Allen
April 6, 2009 | MILLVILLE --
Rael Thompson spoke with the Millville City Council
April 2, after a misunderstanding at the last meeting,
when the council voted to approve the number of dogs
she wanted to own.
At the council meeting
on March 19, Mark Bodily presented an e-mail to the
council from Thompson asking permission to keep 10-12
dogs on her property for her Shih Tzu breeding program.
The city's ordinance states that only 6 dogs are permitted.
The council voted to approve her
keeping that many dogs, believing that was including
the puppies the dogs would have. Since dogs don’t have
to be licensed until they are 6 months old in Millville,
and as long as she had found homes for the puppies before
they had to be licensed, the council did not find a
problem with her breeding program.
Thompson met with the council last
night to clear up the misunderstanding about her dogs
and breeding program.
Thompson said that she wanted to
have 10-12 adult dogs on her property not including
the puppies that the dogs of her breeding program would
have. Not all of the dogs that she has now are for breeding
purposes and are just pets of the family.
"I wouldn't want more
than 10 at my home," Thompson said as she stood
in front of the council and explained that if she had
more than that it would be when she was raising a puppy
to replace one of her breeding dogs. Thompson said she
would then find a home for the dog when it was able
to be replaced.
Brian Jensen said that the city had
the ordinance of how many dogs people were allowed to
own was there for a reason because the city has had
people own more than that in the past and it had not
turned out well.
Brain Jensen said that people had
wanted to have a refuge for stray dogs but problems
had arisen with that and an ordinance had to be made.
Thompson said that she was aware
of that and understood why it was there but what she
was doing was different and that she was asking for
a variance.
Bodily said that he wanted to give
her a year trail before granting a permanent variance
to make sure that there would be no problems with the
neighbors having the dogs or that any other issues arose
from her having that many dogs.
Councilmen Jared Taylor and David
Hair wanted to review the ordinance and look to see
if there were any other problems or ordinances that
would not make Thompson’s request impossible before
deciding on what to do.
The council decided to make a decision
and discuss Thompson’s request at the next meeting on
May 7.
During the meeting the store manager
for the new Walmart that will be built in south Logan
spoke to the council about Walmart giving money to Millville
to use.
"We do volunteer work
in the community," he explained to the council
and said that the money would be given to help development
of the work force, court systems, and parks.
"Well I’m sure we’ll repay
you back," Jensen said with a laugh.
Superintendent Gary Larsen said later
on in the meeting "we have two or three things
we could do [with the money]."
Ideas were bounced around the meeting
on what the money could used for including park benches,
drinking fountains, and barbeque pits.
Other items in the meeting:
-- Bonneville Firearms Training Academy
approved.
-- Money for Arbor day granted to be used for planting
some trees.
-- Easter Festivities and Miss Millville were discussed.
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