The Waukesha City Ordinance and Licensing Committee voted Oct. 13 to ask staff to draft an ordinance that would adopt Wisconsin Statute 174.02 into the city’s municipal code, creating a local mechanism to cite owners for dog attacks and to assess forfeitures.

City legal staff said the action responds to a letter from an attorney representing a person injured in a dog attack and to the city’s recent loss of county-level humane-officer services. Staff proposed adopting 174.02, subsection 2, which sets out owner liability and forfeiture amounts: up to $2,500 for a first offense and up to $5,000 for subsequent offenses under state statute. The staff memo and discussion noted the municipal adoption would allow the city to issue municipal citations and seek forfeitures in municipal court rather than relying solely on circuit-court prosecution.

“State law says that if your dog injures someone or injures someone else's animal or does property damage, you are responsible for it,” city legal staff said in explaining the statute. Committee members said they wanted to act quickly in response to recent incidents; one member shared a neighborhood example of residents feeling unsafe because of aggressive dogs. The committee also discussed appointing a city humane officer but decided that appointment requires a separate discussion and more detailed planning.

Committee members asked whether judges would consider defendants’ ability to pay when imposing forfeitures. City legal staff replied that the judge would have discretion over penalties and could consider ability to pay and other mitigating circumstances. The committee voted to authorize staff to draft an ordinance for presentation at the next council meeting and recorded the committee vote in the transcript as unanimous.

Why it matters

Adopting 174.02 as a municipal ordinance would give Waukesha an expedited, local enforcement pathway for dangerous-dog incidents, including the possibility of municipal forfeitures and stronger remedies for repeated offenses. Committee members said the change would close an enforcement gap that exists now that county humane-officer tracking and response have ceased.

Next steps

The committee instructed city staff to prepare a draft ordinance adopting 174.02 for presentation to the common council at the next meeting. The committee also signaled it will take up the separate question of whether to appoint a city humane officer at a later date.