By Kaitlin Bain
Yakima Herald-Republic
YAKIMA — The Yakima Humane Society will not partner with the city of Yakima as long as pit bull terriers are banned.
The nonprofit gave its notice at Monday’s Yakima City Council meeting after the governing body decided to postpone a vote on lifting a ban on pit bull terriers that’s been in place for more than 30 years.
Through its partnership with the city, the Humane Society picks up stray dogs and cats within the city limits. It keeps these animals for a minimum of 72 hours — spaying and neutering them, feeding them and providing needed medical care.
It was unclear Tuesday night what the Humane Society’s role within Yakima would be outside of a contractual partnership.
The decision to postpone, which was led by Councilman Jason White, was a courtesy to Councilwoman Holly Cousens, who was absent. But it forced the Humane Society’s hand.
“We respect the city and the relationship we have built,” said Humane Society board President Kelly Murray. “But we can no longer be the muscle behind the enforcement of an unsubstantiated, unjust ban.”
Humane Society Director Charles Stanton said the city gave the Humane Society until Friday to decide whether to continue the partnership in 2019. Because the ban will still be in place at that point, he said the organization can no longer partner with the city. The Humane Society would be happy to reconsider the partnership should the ban be lifted, he said.
Councilwoman Carmen Mendez, who has led the charge to reverse the pit bull ban, said it would be a challenge for the city to provide its own animal control services.
According to Murray, the Humane Society picked up 733 dogs within the Yakima city limits in 2017.
The city’s contract with the society — which City Manager Cliff Moore said was $261,084 for 2018 — underwrites the Humane Society’s expenses but doesn’t cover all of them, Stanton said.
It’s unknown how much it would cost the city to cover the services itself.
“Breed-specific legislation is one of the things (the Humane Society) is against, and I understand where they’re coming from,” Mendez said. “But if our contract ended, it would impact the city greatly because we don’t have resources allocated to be able to manage all the animals. We would have to figure out a way to do it with city employees.”
After the council decided unanimously to postpone the vote on the ban, public comment followed. A woman from Seattle gave the council a photograph of a pit bull terrier bite and spoke in favor of the ban, explaining how the dogs could be used as a weapon for people who can’t get their hands on weapons otherwise.
The rest of the handful of commenters — with the exception of former Councilman Dave Ettl — spoke against the ban, giving statistics regarding what they described as an overstatement of the dogs’ danger or personal experiences of joys with their pit bull terriers and hardships without them.
Ettl compared the pit bull ban to school zones — some people don’t follow school zone speed limits, so, he said, based on the argument made by pit bull terrier supporters, the zones should be eliminated.
“Pit bull bans are about public safety,” he said.
The council moved the vote on the ban to its Aug. 21 meeting.
