When the Powell City Council barred a local resident from keeping a pet goat, they violated her civil rights, she contends in a new lawsuit.

In a complaint filed Tuesday in Wyoming’s U.S. District Court, Venus Bontadelli asserts that the city’s refusal to issue an exotic pet permit for her Nigerian pygmy goat was “arbitrary and not rationally related to any legitimate governmental interest.”

Bontadelli wants a federal judge to order the city to either issue a permit for her goat Porsche Lane or to reconsider her application “under constitutionally adequate standards.” She is also asking the court to declare that the city’s exotic pet ordinance violates residents’ due process rights under the U.S. Constitution and the Wyoming Constitution’s bar on arbitrary power, requesting an injunction.

“When a city sets up a permitting process, it has to have standards,” said Austin Waisanen of Cody, one of Bontadelli’s attorneys with the Pacific Legal Foundation. “It can’t leave people to the mercy of government officials’ whims.”

Mayor John Wetzel said Wednesday that he hadn’t seen the suit, but believes the city has been consistent in denying requests for exotic pets.

“I’m sad it’s come to this, but we do have to follow our ordinance[s] as they’re written,” Wetzel said. “I think we would have done more of a disservice to grant an exception, because that’s not the way it works.”

The city bars residents from keeping many types of animals, including goats, cows, ducks, horses, sheep, peacocks, venomous snakes and chinchillas. Powell does allow rabbits and chickens, subject to some restrictions.

A complaint and support

When Bontadelli brought her permit request to the council in July, council members were sympathetic, but expressed concern about the precedent they might set by permitting Porsche Lane.

“It’s a very difficult situation for us, because it opens up a door for the next person through …,” Wetzel said at the July 7 meeting.

While open to revising the underlying ordinance, Councilman Troy Bray also didn’t like the idea of making an exception.

“I don’t think a pygmy goat is that big a deal,” Bray said, “but we don’t want a whole herd of Nubians [a larger breed] running around town, either.”

However, Bontadelli and her attorneys say the council never explained how denying a permit for the quiet, clean, 21-pound Porsche Lane would further a “legitimate governmental objective.”

They note in part that two of Bontadelli’s neighbors wrote letters expressing support for allowing her to keep Porsche Lane.

It was actually a resident who lives outside of Bontadelli’s neighborhood who reported the goat to Powell police and kicked off the ordeal. After receiving the report in late May, the police department’s community service officer notified Bontadelli that she couldn’t have a goat (and would need to get rid of eight of her 12 chickens).

Bontadelli applied for an exotic pet permit, but Police Chief Jim Rhea denied it, saying the current ordinance doesn’t give him any wiggle room. She then appealed to the council, asking for a three- to five-year exception for Porsche Lane while her family looked for another home in rural Park County.

“She is part of our family,” Bontadelli wrote of the goat. 

The council unanimously denied the request.

Bontadelli said Porsche Lane was going back to her breeder, who planned to keep the goat until the family could have her back.

Escape from California?

Bontadelli and her husband bought their East Adams Street home last year. In this week’s suit, Bontadelli says she moved to Powell to be closer to family “and escape what she viewed as an increasingly liberal and imperious state of politics in California.”

“Unfortunately, it did not take long for Mrs. Bontadelli to learn that despite Wyoming’s more appealing political climate, local governments in Wyoming also exercise shockingly broad power over the lives and property of citizens in ways that are often difficult to predict or understand,” the complaint asserts.

With Powell’s ordinance containing no standards for granting or denying a permit, Bontadelli and her attorneys contend the city “has created a system that, on its face, invites arbitrary, discriminatory, and irrational decision-making.”

They note in part that the “industrial limited” zoning for Bontadelli’s property theoretically allows veterinary clinics — which could treat multiple sick goats — while the ordinance bars her from keeping one as a pet. 

Bontadelli is seeking only $1 in damages from the city, while asking the court to order the city to cover the fees and costs for her attorneys with the Pacific Legal Foundation.

The Virginia-based foundation is a nonprofit law firm that “defends Americans threatened by government overreach and abuse.”

The firm recently obtained a $30,000 settlement from the Heart Mountain Irrigation District on behalf of a Cody area resident; he alleged the district’s former manager had damaged his property and injured him.

The City of Powell will have a few weeks to respond to the suit after being officially served with the complaint. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl of Casper.