Simi residents Fran and Paul Stevenson live on a corner surrounded by homes with dogs. For the last few years, the couple said, they’ve suffered through night after night of incessant barking— sometimes starting as early as 6 a.m. or going past midnight.

“We feel like we are in no man’s land,” Fran Stevenson said. “There are holes in the (neighbor’s) fence and when one dog . . . gets sight or sound of any of the other dogs, he goes berserk.”

“Once the one next door starts, they all start.”

In the past, there wasn’t anything the couple could do if none of their neighbors would complain with them to animal control. But now, residents like the Stevensons can file on their own to address a grievance.

On Monday, the City Council approved amending the city’s animal control ordinance to allow— in special circumstances—one person instead of two to initiate the process of declaring a barking dog a public nuisance.

The twocomplainant requirement was intended to act as a safeguard against false complaints. Councilman Steve Sojka said he was concerned that some residents might fabricate evidence against a neighbor and for that reason supports the two-party system, but he agreed a method of recourse is needed for unique situations.

“You have to protect people from barking dogs 24/7, but on the other side, you have to also protect the neighbors from someone who just wants to make their life miserable,” he said.

Under the revised ordinance, “special physical circumstances” include situations where a reporting party’s residence is the only residence in close proximity to the barking dog or where some physical or topographical feature such as a roadway or a hill would limit the effects of a dog’s barking to just one residence.

Animal control has the authority to determine what qualifies as a special circumstance.

The issue was first brought to the city’s attention in May when a number of residents attended a council meeting to express their frustration with the current process for handling barking complaints.

Mayor Pro Tem Barbra Williamson, who serves as the council’s liaison to animal control, and Monica Nolan, the new director of Ventura County Animal Regulation (AR), met with dog owners and with residents who were upset about barking dogs.

As a result of those meetings, AR is implementing several changes to its system, including:

•Improving its website to clarify how a resident can file a barking dog complaint and, if that doesn’t solve the problem, the steps one needs to take to have a dog declared a public nuisance, which is a legal process involving a hearing.

•Developing a barking dog hotline so that a resident can file a complaint at any time by calling (805) 388-4341 (Option 3) and leaving a message

•Sending a blind copy of the letter issued to a dog owner to the complainant so they know that AR has followed up on their complaint

•For the public nuisance process, reducing the timeframe for compliance from 14 days to 7 days and reducing the minimum timeframe residents are asked to maintain a barking dog log from 14 days to 5 days

•Notifying the owner of a barking dog when a formal public nuisance complaint packet is requested by a neighbor

•Holding public nuisance abatement hearings for Simi residents in Simi rather than in Ventura

Nolan, who tackled the barking dog issue just weeks after taking over as director of AR, is confident that these changes will make the complaint process more effective.

“Hopefully with the improvements we are going to be making with communication and clarity . . . that’s going to take care of a majority of the problems,” she said.

Also on the table at Monday’s meeting was establishing an administrative citation process that would allow animal control officers to cite and fine the owner of a barking dog who doesn’t resolve the problem after the initial letter of complaint is sent out.

Resident Rick Shaw received a letter about his barking dog in April when a neighbor filed a complaint about six dogs in the neighborhood.

He attended the meetings held by city and animal control representatives and for the most part, said he agrees with fellow residents who advocated for improvements to make the complaint system more effective, but had concerns over the change to city law.

“The getting in touch, the website, the making everything easier as far as the communication with the county—I’m all in favor of,” Shaw told the council Monday. “I have worries about the one reporting party, the citation, the fines.”

Resident Frank Kolesar was in favor of such a citation process, saying there needs to be a fine that fits the crime.

“Unless you have meaningful fines you’ll never change behavior,” he said. “What’s the cost of a baby not sleeping? What’s the cost of an elderly person being kept up? What’s the cost of somebody losing a night’s sleep?”

However, the council decided to hold off on an implementing a fine structure, opting instead to first see how the other changes improve the process.

Councilwoman Michelle Foster said she didn’t want to further complicate the issue by having dual processes.

“It seems to me that the public nuisance process is a more effective way to resolve the issue than issuing a fine,” she said. “I’m not so inclined to start issuing fines if that doesn’t get us to the ultimate result of having the dog stop barking.”

At the end of the hearing, Williamson said the council will continue to work with citizens to make sure they are getting the help they need.

“We are trying to fix something that is terribly broken and we’ve made huge, giant steps,” she said.

Mayor Paul Miller echoed her sentiments.

“This is not perfect but we’ll keep working on it until it is,” he said.

For more information, visit Animal Regulation’s website at www.vcar.us.