Letter: Sioux City Council Should "Hold Firm" on Pit Bull Ban

Citizen Offers Encouragement
Sioux City, IW - Council members have been steadily honing a pit bull ban for a period of months. The proposed ban has passed two readings and requires one more to be enacted into law. Just before the last reading, set for September 15th, two new pit bull attacks have occurred. One involved a disabled teenager and the other a 4-year old girl. Both incidents involved innocent people attacked by loose pit bulls.

Passing a pit bull ordinance, particularly a ban, is no easy undertaking for a city council. Through "pit bull spamming," where non-local residents flood council member email inboxes with aggressive and intimidating emails, and loading up public hearings with loud, irrational individuals who cry, "THIS IS GENOCIDE!" council members have their hands full.

A common sense citizen reminds council members of the majority opinion in a recent letter to the editor at the Sioux City Journal newspaper.

Letter to the editor: A very loud group of pit bull owners affected by the proposed ban continue to fight against what’s best for our community. I hope the City Council realizes these people don’t speak for most of us who understand that public safety is more important than one’s personal dog breed preference. Most of these advocates live in Merrill, Hinton or Lawton and feel they should have some influence on policy in Sioux City.

I think I speak for the silent majority in Sioux City when I say I don’t care much for pit bulls and really do think they pose a danger to our city. Especially after what happened to that poor boy attacked by two pit bulls when getting off a school bus.

While we all acknowledge that owners do play a role in pit bull problems, for those who insist that the problem is 100 percent owner driven, notice that the owner didn’t bite the poor child, and consider that if he had encountered a labrador when he got off the bus, he probably wouldn’t have suffered from more than some unwelcomed licking and panting.

We want something done about this, and I hope the City Council won’t be influenced be a highly vocal group with a minority opinion. Councilman Rochester deserves praise for working to resolve this problem on behalf of the honest and caring people in this city. It’s not going away, and the City Council needs to hold firm against animal rights wackos and do the right thing. - Matt J. Delzell

Related articles:
09/04/08: Sioux City Teenager Attacked by Pit Bull Stepping Off Bus
08/27/08: Sioux City Irons Out Final Pit Bull Ordinance Issues

Labels: letter to the editor, pit bull ban, pit spamming