The Monday meeting of the city of Powell’s planning and zoning commission was the rare occasion where the attendees outnumbered the commissioners. Residents came to share their thoughts on changing the limits on the number of pets that can be legally owned per household.
The Pittman family moved to Powell from Texas in 2025 with their four dogs. After their neighbors called the Powell Police Department about a noise complaint, they were informed of Ordinance 17.76.030, regarding the permitted number of household pets allowed in a single household.
Faced with the prospect of having to give up two of their four dogs, the Pittman family appealed to the Powell City Council to amend the ordinance to allow up to four household pets.
The Powell City Council voted to send the consideration to the city’s planning and zoning commission for discussion.
Around 20 people attended the commission’s Monday meeting to have their say on the matter. Emotions, positive and negative, always run high when it comes to pets.
No dogs, cats, or other household pets were in attendance.
“We are sympathetic to both sides of the issue,” said chairman Brian Peters. “Our purpose here tonight is to try to balance the competing interests of pet owners and the public interest at large.”
At Least It’s Not A Zebra
After Peters laid out some basic decorum for what he called a “pseudo public hearing,” he invited attendees to share their thoughts on amending the ordinance.
Chris Pittman was the first to speak. He appreciated the opportunity to make his case and started by emphasizing that his family wasn’t “trying to move in and change things.”
“My grandfather was born in Penrose in 1916, (and) my dad's mother was born in London,” he said. “We were unaware of the law before we moved here, so we appreciate the opportunity to maybe have the law rewritten so that we can keep all four of our dogs.”
Pittman acknowledged that his neighbors have called in multiple noise complaints about dogs in his neighborhood, but claimed his dogs weren’t the instigators of at least one of those calls. He added that he’s built a 6-foot privacy fence to remedy the problem.
Heather Pittman, who was sitting next to her daughter, spoke next. She started by apologizing to “all of you who have been upset about this whole thing,” but said her primary concern was harassment.
“The lady who was calling about the dogs had started to harass our children,” she said. When it comes down to people harassing kids, that’s not okay, so we did this to protect our children.”
Both the Pittmans acknowledged that they love their dogs as pets, but they’ll be taking their kids with them when they depart for college. Also, they said all the dogs are under two years old, so it’s possible they’ll get less vocal as they mature.
Heather added that barking dogs aren’t the worst neighbors in the world. Try living next to a zebra, which they did in Texas.
“The noisiest neighbor we had was a zebra next door,” she said. “If you think our dogs are noisy, wait till you live next door to a zebra. They bark like you would not believe, or whatever you call it for zebras.”
When The Little Yippers Get Going
Many people at the meeting shared their frustrations with dogs and dog owners, not just the circumstances surrounding the household pet ordinance.
Anna Paris raised numerous concerns about the current situation. Her concern was how many pets are too many or not enough.
“It’s very emotional talking about pets, but you're the zoning board, and you're here for the public welfare,” she said. “When you're talking about household pets, I think the definition needs to be clarified a little bit better.”
Paris raised concerns about the placement of dog kennels, the two-pet rule’s failure to differentiate between dogs and cats, the increasingly smaller lot sizes in Powell, and how dogs “attack” everything from fences to people.
“My renters were inconvenienced and had to go to the post office because the postal carriers refused to deliver mail because of dangerous and vicious animals,” she said. “That’s something we need to talk about.”
Powell resident Priscilla Gates said her neighbor has owned four small dogs for the last 10 years. She expressed her frustration that they were violating the ordinance, but nothing had been done, so those four dogs were next-door home crashers.
“We have not used our backyard for a barbecue or anything, because as soon as we're out there, they're at the fence,” she said. “My bedroom is right near the backyard. It isn't 25 feet away. So, when those little yippers get going at 6:30 in the morning, I’m not a happy camper.”
Gates claimed that the neighbors had up to 22 dogs living at their home at one point. When they called the Powell Police Department to report it, the owners apparently said they were “babysitting” all but two of those dogs.
The Bronx Salute
When the Pittmans spoke, they suggested an amendment to the ordinance that would specify the differences between the breeds of dogs. People could be allowed to own up to two large-breed and two small-breed dogs, accommodating the four dogs they currently own.
Other attendees didn’t see eye to eye with the Pittmans. Many were inclined to say small dogs are worse than big dogs.
Paris said that small dogs have “more energy” to cause more of a nuisance, suggesting that upping the limit would make things worse. That sentiment was shared by John Sinskie, who was opposed to changing the ordinance.
“Small dogs are usually a lot louder than the big ones,” he said. “The big ones are usually more mature, but the small ones are yippy, and they make a lot of noise, regardless of how old they are.”
Sinskie’s primary concern was the growing amount of dog waste in Powell. He says his own property has become “a bathroom of waste and urine.”
“Urine does destroy grass,” he said. “It destroys property, so our property rights are being violated. They’re trespassing.”
Steven Kessler shared that sentiment. He spoke about the brazen attitude of some dog owners who have allowed their dogs to relieve themselves on his property.
“We've had people walk their dog along the street and then let their dog come around the fence we got a permit to put up to stop it,” he said. “My wife looked out at 5:30 in the morning and said, ‘Excuse me, we had the fence put up for just that reason,’ and the guy's response was the Bronx salute.”
Kessler specified that a “Bronx Salute” was the middle finger.
In another instance, a woman that Kessler caught and called out blew him a kiss before moving on, once their dog had finished its business on their yard.
“You can put up a fence and a sign, and they literally do not care,” he said.
Little Footballs
Troy Bray had an entirely different perspective. Rather than amend the ordinance, he advocated for abolishing it altogether.
“Rather than regulating a dog, regulate the behaviors,” he said. “We have noise ordinances, we have trespassing ordinances, we have ordinances that already covered most of the behavior that I've heard complaints about tonight, and those can be enforced much more easily than going into everybody's house to see how many cats they have.”
Bray said he’s “knocked on many doors” of people with two dogs in their yard and several “little footballs” inside their home, clearly violating the ordinance. He based his argument on the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
“It states that the law has to apply equally to everybody,” he said. “I just think that there's a lot of liability here that the city doesn't necessarily need. I haven't lived my own life well enough to think that I deserve to live yours for you, and I don't think anybody else has lived their life well enough to tell me how to live mine.”
Noise And Excrement
When public comments concluded, the commissioners had an opportunity to discuss the ordinance. Peters’s main takeaway from the public comments was that their dog concerns came down to two points: noise and excrement.
“What we're hearing, mostly, is the responsibility of various dog owners,” he said. “The fact that you’ll let your dog defecate on somebody else's property is being an irresponsible pet owner. One dog, four dogs, I don’t know if it makes any difference.”
Many commissioners were confused by what the ordinance defined as a household pet. The discussion primarily focused on dogs, but “household pet” includes cats, canaries, parrots, other caged birds, hamsters, guinea pigs, other rodents, ferrets, fish, reptiles, and “other such species that normally would be kept at a farm.”
Meanwhile, the ordinance excludes animals such as horses, cows, sheep, goats, pigs, peacocks, chinchillas, snakes over 3 feet in length, and venomous reptiles and amphibians.
That would mean people can only own two dogs, cats, hamsters, or fish, or any combination of those animals, but only one of each. Anything over that would be a violation.
Many people commented that “certain city officials” are violating the ordinance by openly keeping more than two household animals. The commissioners didn’t deny it, adding more reason to review the ordinance.
“What you're saying is it's not uniformly enforced,” Peters said.
However, Peters pointed out that many people seemed to be venting frustrations over dog owners and ordinance enforcement rather than the issue of amending the ordinance. Many people were there to air grievances about dog waste destroying grass, which is covered by a separate ordinance.
“I’ll reiterate (that) we're only considering the limit on the number of dogs, not the merits of dog ownership, but I appreciate and can sympathize with your experiences,” he said.
Nobody was saying that every time a lawn is micturated upon in their fair city, they had to compensate the person. Nevertheless, the general sentiment was that the ordinance was functionally useless if it wasn’t enforced.
“Controls and permits are one thing, enforcement is another,” Sinskie said to the general agreement of the room.
A People Problem
At the end of the meeting, Peters said the commissioners had “several options to consider,” such as isolating cats from dogs and setting different limits for different breeds of dogs.
Another option was to recommend a new permit process in which people would pay an annual fee to own more than two household pets, with an annual inspection to determine whether they could renew or forfeit the permit based on complaints and the overall well-being of the animals.
One thing he emphasized was that the commissioners’ decision wouldn’t be swayed by the current predicament of the Pittmans.
“When we change an ordinance, it's not to address a specific problem,” he said. “What we're doing is for posterity. We're trying to consider everyone's interests. Yours are important to us, but we would not change an ordinance for one specific instance.”
The commissioners decided to vote on a recommendation to the Powell City Council about whether to amend Ordinance 17.76.030 at their next meeting in April.
Peters seemed optimistic that the planning and zoning commission could make a positive recommendation that would clarify the ordinance and give responsible pet owners more options.
Ultimately, the commission can’t change anything. All they can do is advise the city council, and any ordinance change would have to be read three separate times in three separate meetings before it would be up for a vote.
While abandoned dog waste, ruined grass, and barking dogs are noteworthy concerns, much of what was discussed at the Monday meeting was “people problems.”
“Hundreds, if not thousands of cities that have these restrictions, and they don't solve all the problems,” he said. “Most of them also have ordinances that restrict the dog's behavior and the owner's behavior. These are designed to reduce or prevent the conflicts before they happen."
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
