Brackettville Citizens get Agreed Preliminary Injunction with City & Mayor Andres Rodriguez
By: Jose G. Landa, Copyright 2015, Eagle Pass Business Journal, Inc.
The Brackettville Animal Lovers Association’s (BALA) lawsuit against the City of Brackettville, Texas and its Mayor Andres Rodriguez took an interesting twist on Tuesday, May 12, 2015, as all the parties announced to United States District Court Judge Alia Moses for the Western District of Texas, Del Rio Division, in Del Rio, Texas that they had reached an amicable Agreed Preliminary Injunction regarding the City’s enforcement of an Animal Control Ordinance.
BALA filed suit in state district court challenging the City’s passage of an amendment to the Animal Control Ordinance on December 9, 2014 as failing to follow proper City and State law procedures, challenging the validity and constitutionality of the amended animal control ordinance, and claiming that the amended ordinance violated their due and equal process rights by establishing discriminatory boundary areas within the corporate city limits with one boundary area allowed to have livestock while another area prohibited from having livestock. However, the City of Brackettville and Mayor Andres Rodriguez removed the case to federal district court in Del Rio, Texas due to BALA’s constitutional claims in the lawsuit.
At a scheduled Court hearing on May 12th to hear BALA’s application for preliminary injunction relief against the City of Brackettville and Mayor Andres Rodriguez before U.S. District Judge Alia Moses, BALA’s attorney, Ricardo E. Calderon of Eagle Pass, and the City of Brackettville and Mayor Andres Rodriguez’s attorney, Elizabeth Provencio of San Antonio, announced that the parties had reached an Agreed Preliminary Injunction enjoining the City and Mayor Rodriguez from enforcing the disputed December 9, 2014 Amended Animal Control Ordinance, which prohibited livestock within a certain arbitrary boundary area within the city limits, while the federal lawsuit proceeds and until a final judgment is entered in the case.
The parties agreed that the City of Brackettville and Mayor Rodriguez will revert back temporarily to their previous Animal Control Ordinance amended on May 13, 2007, which allows livestock within the city limits without any boundaries, subject to some minor modifications. This May 13, 2007 Animal Control Ordinance will be temporarily enforced until the federal case is decided.
This temporary injunctive relief allows all the parties some relief which they seek in the pending federal lawsuit, giving BALA and its members and all the residents of Brackettvillle the opportunity to keep livestock within the city limits without any boundaries, except swine, while the City of Brackettville can enforce the May 13, 2007 Animal Control Ordinance within the city limits.
Placed on hold is the enforcement of the disputed and controversial December 9, 2014 Amended Animal Control Ordinance enacted by the Brackettville City Council under the leadership of Mayor Andres Rodriguez and Council members Francisca Hernandez, Jesus “Roy” Garza, Francisco Rodriguez, Jr., Joe N. Garza, Jr., and Rachel Munoz. BALA and its members sued the City and Mayor Rodriguez for allegedly violating their legal and constitutional rights as a result of the City Council’s alleged unlawful passage of the December 9, 2014 Amended Animal Control Ordinance.
According to the parties at the May 12th Court hearing, the parties also agreed that the City of Brackettville and its employees are enjoined from issuing Citations for alleged violations of the disputed December 9, 2014 Amended Animal Control Ordinance to any member of BALA, person, resident, citizen, animal and livestock owner, and real property owner of the City of Brackettville, Texas.
The Agreed Preliminary Injunction also enjoins the City of Brackettville and its employees from destroying, amending, changing, and tampering with any public records concerning the approval of the controversial December 9, 2014 Amended Animal Control Ordinance as well as from intimidating, harassing, threatening, stalking, retaliating and taking any unlawful act or conduct against any member of BALA and their family members, relatives, friends, agents, representatives, and attorneys for bringing this lawsuit against the City and Mayor Andres Rodriguez.
The residents of Brackettville will now have to adhere to the May 13, 2007 Amended Animal Control Ordinance together with the minor modifications, which allows livestock, except swine, within the city limits without any discriminatory boundaries dividing the citizens.
The modifications to the May 13, 2007 Amended Animal Control Ordinance include allowing the City’s Police Chief to enforce the ordinance since the City of Brackettville Animal Control Officer resigned earlier this month, water supply will include daily water change and/or piped water supply, livestock/fowl pens distances requirement will be 50 feet from a neighbor’s residence, manure disposition allows the resident to properly dispose of it and if a resident does not have the ability to dispose of it, then the resident will call the City for a work order no later than 4 P.M. on Thursday for Friday pickup and the manure must be separated from household trash, and that swine will only be allowed to members of the Kinney County Youth Development Association and the Brackettville Independent School District provided these animals are kept in a leased property in a non-residential area.
U.S. District Court Judge Alia Moses approved the parties Agreed Preliminary Injunction subject to submission of the order.
