Horse still living in town

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July 30, 2010

Owner waiting on city settlement to move animal from property

By Scott Smith Tribune staff writer The Kokomo Tribune Fri Jul 30, 2010, 11:10 PM EDT

Kokomo — Kokomo resident Dyanna Neal expects to be recompensed for being led to believe she could keep a horse within city limits.

City officials aren’t disagreeing.

But while the details of a possible settlement are being hashed out, Neal said she’s keeping Poco The Judge right where he is.

Neal wasn’t happy this week when a city inspector arrived at her South Union Street property, sent to determine if she still had the horse there.

Councilman Bob Cameron, D-2nd, said he contacted the administration after one of Neal’s neighbors complained.

“I presumed it was done. It’s been four weeks,” Cameron said.

Neal’s attorney, Michael Krebes, hasn’t responded to several calls for comment, and city attorney Derek Sublette said both attorneys have agreed not to speak publicly about the matter for the time being.

“We’re working toward getting an amicable settlement, so the horse isn’t there and she doesn’t feel aggrieved,” Sublette said Friday.

In a letter to the editor this week, Neal said she wanted the city to purchase acreage outside the city where she can pasture the horse.

City officials won’t discuss what they’re offering, but two weeks ago, city director of operations Randy Morris indicated city labor would take down Neal’s barn at no cost to her.

But Neal put up the barn because she was told by local planning officials that it wouldn’t violate any city ordinance. No one disputes that she was up front in letting officials know she intended to keep a horse.

But two weeks after her neighbor, Morris Parks, petitioned the Kokomo Common Council to take action, Kokomo City Clerk Brenda Ott found a 1966 ordinance banning the keeping of domestic animals — defined as horses, cows, sheep, goats and hogs — within city limits.

Ott discovered the ordinance during a search of city archives.

“I did all of this above board. I never tried to deceive anyone,” Neal said at a July meeting of the Kokomo Common Council. “I bought a show horse for my 11-year-old, and people have tried to say the horse stinks, that it’s dirty and that it causes health problems. Well it doesn’t stink, and it’s not dirty.”

Confusion over whether various animal ordinances had been repealed led to the 1966 ordinance’s exclusion from the city code book when the book was updated in 1984, council attorney Corbin King explained.

Sublette, who is back temporarily after his successor left suddenly, said he wasn’t aware until this week that Neal still had the horse at her property.

By law, the city could fine Neal for keeping the horse.

“I think the ordinance gives us some latitude about monetary penalties,” Sublette said. “We haven’t figured out when or if we’re going to assess anything.”

• Scott Smith is a Kokomo Tribune staff writer. He may be reached at 765-454-8569 or via e-mail at scott.smith@kokomotribune.com

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