VERNON -- Township officials, looking to defray the cost of protecting the public from dogs the courts have deemed "potentially dangerous," have reintroduced a proposal to charge their owners a special licensing fee of $700 per dog.

VERNON -- Township officials, looking to defray the cost of protecting the public from dogs that the courts have deemed "potentially dangerous," have reintroduced a proposal to charge their owners a special licensing fee of $700 per dog -- the maximum allowed by law.

The proposed ordinance, whose introduction was supported by a 5-0 vote of the Township Council on Monday, will be the subject of a Jan. 22 public hearing, at which time three of the five council members will need to vote for its adoption in order for it to become law.

The proposal, which follows two recently publicized cases of people who suffered serious injury after being bitten by pit bulls, is not breed-specific and would only be enforceable in cases where a court order was issued in accordance with a state statute, 4:19-23, pertaining to potentially dangerous dogs.

The proposed ordinance was initially taken up in an earlier form last summer but, in a vote held Aug. 14, failed to muster the votes needed for it to pass as Councilwoman Sandra Ooms and then-Councilman Pat Rizzuto declined to join Council President Jean Murphy and Councilman Dan Kadish in supporting it. Because then-Councilman Dick Wetzel was not in attendance at that meeting, the measure failed on a 2-2 tie.

On Monday, however, the governing body's two newest members -- Mark Van Tassel and John Auberger, both of whom were sworn in last week after winning election over Rizzuto and Wetzel in November -- voted unanimously with Ooms and with council members Murphy and Kadish to send the proposal to a new public hearing later this month.

Ooms, who had originally asked last year to have the special fee lowered to $500, acknowledged following Monday's vote that she had since reconsidered her position. However, she suggested she was still on the fence about whether to support the measure's adoption when it comes up for a final vote on Jan. 22.

But Mayor Harry Shortway, who first asked the council to support the measure last year, defended the proposal as necessary to defray the costs of enforcing compliance by the owners of dogs that the courts have deemed a risk to public safety.

In one such case, which culminated in a plea agreement last year, the court agreed to return custody of a dog belonging to a Paterson police officer who lives in Vernon subject to the requirement that the dog be kept in a specially built enclosure and be muzzled and leashed at all other times.

The court also required the owner to submit to ongoing monthly inspections by the township's animal control officer to ensure compliance with these and other conditions.

Since then, a second dog owner -- whose story was detailed in the Sunday New Jersey Herald -- has been served with a summons after her dog got loose from her home and bit a neighbor in the face in September. A judge last month gave her 30 days to comply with requirements similar to those imposed previously on the Paterson police officer.

Shortway, in a phone conversation Tuesday, reiterated his position that those who voluntarily harbor dogs adjudicated by the courts as potentially dangerous should be responsible for paying the costs of monitoring and compliance.

Those costs, he has argued, include not only the time and gasoline expended from having the animal control officer make monthly inspection visits to the homes of those individuals but also the additional need to cover for the animal control officer as a result of him being taken away from his other duties.

"Why should the taxpayers have to bear that burden?" Shortway asked.

Under New Jersey statute 4:19-31, municipalities are specifically permitted to defray those costs by charging the owners of such animals a special licensing fee between $150 and $700.

Locally, at least eight other municipalities already have similar ordinances on the books with fees ranging from $500 in Sparta, Hardyston and West Milford, to $700 in Stanhope, Green, Hamburg and Denville, to $1,000 in Sandyston.

Sandyston's fee technically exceeds the state maximum but has yet to be challenged in court.

Eric Obernauer can also be contacted on Twitter: @EricObernNJH or by phone at 973-383-1213.