PIGS IN COURT

In a new twist to La Puente’s seemingly endless battle between pig and bureaucrats, the city filed for an injunction in Los Angeles Superior Court last week to kick the controversial animal out of town, officials said.

Montana, a Vietnamese potbellied pig and 5-year La Puente resident, has been the focus of a 2-year dispute, and now the city said it is taking his owner, Michele Walker, to court because city ordinances prohibit people from keeping pigs as pets.

In eight public hearings and several planning commission meetings, Walker tried to obtain a variance to the law.

Recently the council told the planning commission the pig could stay if all planners could agree on an ordinance, but when the commission came back with a 5-0 vote the city fired two of the planners, Councilwoman Sally Ann Holguin-Fallon said.

Joe Beaulieu, one of the fired planners, is filing a civil suit against the city for his dismissal, Holguin-Fallon said. And Walker said Tuesday she planned to protest the city’s decisions at that night’s council meeting.

C. Robert Ferguson, Walker’s attorney, said he is “surprised at the approach the city has taken,” and added that there is “language in the city ordinance which would permit the court to allow Montana to stay.”