Animal Control loses its leader

A number of issues involving pets in Boulder City has been changing at lightning speed over the past several days, culminating in an announcement via social media channels on Tuesday that Animal Control Supervisor Ann Inabnitt will be retiring, effective Dec. 31.

The retirement announcement comes on the heels of several other animal control-related events in the past week.

In last week’s issue of the Review, it was announced that the city had opened the comment process that is a prelude to the issuance of a Business Impact Statement. Per state law, the city has to issue such a statement before enacting any law that involves fees or fines. The process is still open and scheduled to run until Oct. 18.

While the original official line from the city when they announced the comment period was that it had not yet been decided when to bring the issue to council, it now appears that at least the outlines of a schedule were known by senior members of city staff as early as Sept. 11 of this year.

The Review has received a screenshot of a letter written by Inabnitt and addressed to all of the members of the city council about a meeting she attended on that date with City Attorney Brittany Walker and BCPD Lt. Vincent Albowitz. According to the letter, in that meeting, Walker laid out multiple changes to BC law that would be introduced at the Oct. 22 meeting of the city council.

The changes reportedly include, in addition to setting up a permit process for breeders, a change in the age for mandatory spay and neutering from five months old to six months. A third bill would change what the city refers to as “minor animal control violations” from criminal to civil. A fourth bill would mandate microchipping of any animal found roaming at-large and impounded by animal control.

The Inabnitt letter lays out the reasons the head of animal control in BC was passionately opposed to the age change. (A story diving more deeply into that subject including interviews with multiple doctors and animal experts will appear in a future issue of the Review.)

Inabnitt also alleges that Walker insisted that these changes would become law because, “that is how he wants it.” According to the letter, “he” refers to City Councilmember Steve Walton. In the letter, Inabnitt also reports that Walker said she already knew what the final vote on the issue would be. The letter reports that Walker said, “the vote will be 3-2.”

Requests for any records relating to that meeting have been made under Nevada Open Records law and City Clerk Tami McKay has replied via email that records will be made available on or before Nov. 4. All council members, as well as the attendees of the meeting, have also been solicited for confirmation or denial and any comments. As of press time, none of the individuals had replied.

In a lengthy written statement, city staff confirmed the planned legislation as well as the schedule (contrary to their statement a week ago that nothing had been scheduled yet). The statement did not address Inabnitt’s assertion about Walker saying the legislation is what “he” (i.e., Walton”) wants. As far as the letter’s assertion that Walker appeared to know the eventual outcome of the vote, the statement says only that, “It is unknown if these bills will pass or what the vote will be.”

The city’s position —going all the way back to June of 2023 when this issue was first raised in a meeting by Walker —was that the city was out of compliance with NRS 574.353, a part of Nevada law that addresses animal cruelty and, in part, refers to a permitting process for people who wish to breed animals in the state.

Under Title 7 of Boulder City Code, pets must be spayed and/or neutered but the law has an exception for anyone holding a valid breeder’s permit. However, city code does not provide a process for anyone to get a permit.

But, NRS 574.353 can be read in a couple of different ways. It can be read to say that cities and counties must allow breeding and must require a permit for that activity. Or it can be read as saying that if a city or county allows breeding then they must also require a permit.

Since the law passed in 2011, the number of unwanted animals has exploded with every shelter in the region reporting being full on a regular basis. According to a statement from Inabnitt in June of last year there was, at that time, a six-week waiting list for shelters in the Vegas Valley to surrender a pet and, as a result, BC Animal Control was seeing a huge number of animals dumped in the desert inside Boulder City limits.

The Review reached out to the state Senate and Assembly member who represent Boulder City to ask about the actual intent of the law. They did not reply, however, Sierra Tuter, an assistant librarian in the Research Division of the Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau did reply and provided a compiled legislative history of NRS 574.353.

Reading that history, it was able to be determined that SB 299, the legislation introduced in 2011 that eventually became NRS 574.353 was originally brought forward by former state senator Mark Manendo. Through searches of social media accounts, Manendo was contacted in order to ask about his original intent in regard to SB 299. He cited a death in the family and offered to help with clarifying the original intent, however, he was not able to do so prior to press time for this issue.

However, after being informed about the efforts to clarify the law, the city released a second statement Tuesday. “While the city attorney is confident in her interpretation of NRS 574.353, these are important matters of policy that the city council must decide. Accordingly, the city has decided to put this on hold and the city attorney will be requesting an attorney general interpretation of NRS 574.353.”