Daily Mail Putnam reporter Thursday June 28, 2001; 10:45 AM
WINFIELD, WV -- Iggy the Piggy will get her day in court, but it won't be a personal appearance.
Putnam Circuit Judge Ed Eagloski made that clear at a court hearing Wednesday.
"It will be . . . by photograph or video means only," Eagloski told Cathy Carder, who is appealing a Winfield town order banning her from keeping her pet pot bellied pig at her home.
But Iggy may remain with Carder and her family until the late August trial, Eagloski said, after the attorney for the town said there were no objections.
That was a great relief for Carder. Even if she could afford to pay for lodging Iggy at the local animal shelter, the result could be disastrous, Carder said.
"Pot bellied pigs are very sensitive, emotional animals," Carder said after the hearing.
"If she gets stressed out, it could kill her."
Carder came to the hearing without an attorney, under the impression that the case might be dismissed, she told Eagloski. But he suggested she needed an attorney, making it clear that she had to prepare for the Aug. 30 trial by calling witnesses and preparing motions. Carder agreed that she needed help and completed a form for a court-appointed attorney.
Even Winfield Police Chief Jeff Stevenson assisted, requesting that Eagloski explain the process when Carder appeared baffled by court terminology.
Stevenson in February cited Carder for violation of the town ordinance on "farm animals" that bans having within municipal boundaries any hog, pig, shoat or swine or more than 25 chickens. A letter went to Carder ordering her to remove Iggy in five days. Carder instead protested at Winfield Council March 19, telling members that a pot-bellied pig is a pet rather than a farm animal.
The minutes of the meeting show that Mayor Jake Hunt directed her to the municipal court, explaining that the council is legislative and the court interprets the law.
The municipal judge upheld the citation and fined Carder $25, telling her she could appeal to circuit court.
Carder, returning to work this week as a stripper at a club near St. Albans, suspects that the charge is an effort to get her to move from town.
"The town knows I won't get rid of her. They know I'll have to move," said Carder, who has a scholarship to return to college this fall.
But the mayor says there is no secret agenda.
"I can tell you the honest truth. I have no idea what the lady does. I don't care what the lady does -- unless she raises pigs," Hunt said.
Because of the same ordinance, another resident within the last year gave up a pigmy goat after being notified that it, too, violated the town ordinance, Hunt said.
"To my knowledge, I have never had to worry about chickens," he said.
But after the current case is settled, he anticipates a review of the ordinance to address the poultry issue, although zoning laws adopted since the ordinance apparently bans chickens.
"I don't think the pig part will change," Hunt said.
"The basis of this whole thing is there is an ordinance against pigs," he said.
If the pig had never been seen out of the house, there would never have been a citation, he said.
Writer Evadan Bartlett can be reached at 348-1756.
