Animal Issues Task Force
July 15, 2008
7:30
Room 10035
316 N. Academy Street
Cary, NC
Present: Curt Kennedy, Barbara Wood, Linda Veronica Taylor, Dave Forvendel, Deborah Fox, Kim Parker, Ruth Lanni, Elaine Mangum, Bob Slay
Absent: Lisa Battaglia, Lisa Rich, Jennifer Talbot, Judy Benrud
Others Present: Deputy Chief (DC) Barry Nickalson, Shelly Davis, and Kathleen Sanfratello
Call to Order: Chair Dave Forvendel called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m.
Adoption of Agenda:
Agenda is adopted as written
Approval of Minutes:
The following amendments have been made to the 7/8/08 minutes:
Correction: Durham County Animal Control Officers collect copies of rabies certificates from local veterinarian offices sent to Durham County not Wake County.
Approval of July 8 minutes
Minutes adopted as amended.
Old/New Business:
Additional items below are requested to add to the 7/8/2008 brainstorming session:
Members agree to address the feral cat problem as a separate issue to be identified to council since they do not get registered or go to the vet or follow any process or ordinance.
Should we consider opening a no kill shelter here in Cary? Has Cary already looked into this? DC Nickalson comments that due to the great expense for the Town of Cary it was not something seriously considered. Approximately eight years ago it was looked into more as a ‘traditional’ versus a non-kill shelter. These discussions were at a staff level only.
Something we could add to the education list is that Richmond, VA works with the cable company to feature their animals up for adoption on a 24 hour channel that rotates pictures of the animals up for adoption.
Richmond has a very good program where Animal Control and the SPCA work together. They also have a low death rate.
Member suggests the Town of Cary create a model animal care protection policy, which includes a statement on how we care for our animals in the community. Some municipalities have enacted the Companion Animal Protection Act. (See exhibit A)
More information is available on the web page for the No kill Advocacy Center, http://www.nokilladvocacycenter.org/
Member adds she likes the friendly wording ‘Companion Animal Protection’ because it sounds like you are asking for cooperation rather than a mandatory ordinance.
New Hampshire has a very successful program where people are turned away because there are not enough animals available to adopt. There is some controversy involved because there are many animals being transported out of state to fill the order.
Three things to add:
1. Requested specific statistical data is collected by Cary Animal Control to include; age, sex, injured, breed, etc. Having this statistical data will enable us to be responsive to the problems of Cary.
(Shelly adds: To them it does not matter if it is a pure bred or a mixed breed that we pick up so we do not keep stats by the breed of the animal or stats by how many pure bred are picked up. That information would most likely come from the shelter. But she does recognize the fact that they do pick up a lot of unwanted pure bred cats and dogs. An example of necessary information collected when they pick up an animal would be if they have had rabies inoculation and the approximate age. We provide the approximate age to the SPCA for specific food purposes. For example, kittens may need a nursing mother or an aged animal may need soft food.)
2. Animal Control having the discretion to offer a free dog training class to anyone that may be considering turning there pet over because of one specific problem for example, barking.
3. Referencing spay and neutering a three year process; first year offer PSA, second year offer incentives, third year upon a review spay and neutering may be deemed necessary.
Chair agrees the first step in this process would be the enforcement of the ordinances and education. We cannot get people to change their behavior until they understand why they should change their behavior. In addition to the education the next thing to fall in line would be to offer incentives for licensing and registration. This way we will have a better handle on what our animal population is and increase the return rate to the owner.
Education can not be done without volunteers. The town can produce the literature and the volunteers can distribute the material.
Member shares that Florida does something very similar. They have a neighborhood watch for animals, Scott Allen, as head ACO of Wake County, set this up in several neighborhoods in Wake County. It included community education where the neighborhoods were involved with looking out for feral cats/dogs, etc. Member will get more information to share on this program.
Important to educate the public why enforcement is so important. People are not comfortable calling Animal Control on their neighbor to assist in enforcing the ordinance. They feel they are getting them in trouble.
Questions rose as to whether the fines should be increased because there is no incentive to fix the problem. On the other hand, would this be a greater deterrent from someone calling Animal Control to assist because they do not want to cause a financial burden to their neighbor.
Member shares when you hit someone with a bigger fine and a possible criminal charge that may be enough to change repeat offenders behavior.
Shelly clarifies ordinance fines:
Running at large dogs/cats - $20 for the first offense, $50 for the second, $75 for the third, $100 for the fourth, $250 for the fifth and the animal is seized.
Neglect (which includes no shelter or water provided especially in bad weather) - $20, if fail to comply the animal is seized and the person is charged with animal cruelty.
What is the reclaim fee? While the case is pending the owner is unable to reclaim the animal. If the owner is found guilty in court it is up to the discretion of the Judge to decide to return the animal to the owner.
What does SPCA charge the owner for housing the animal when they come in to reclaim it? I believe it is $12 per day and the owner needs to show proof of rabies, if unable, they have to pay for the rabies inoculation when the reclaim the animal.
Does the SPCA or Wake County charge the owner for necessary medical attention? Cary has a contract with a veterinarian and we will bring the animal to our Vet rather than the SPCA when medical attention is needed. Once the owner is identified they are required to reimburse the town for the medical expense.
Member reminds group that we have a lot of responsible pet owners that live in Cary and occasionally accidents happen where an animal gets out on the street and gets picked up by Animal Control. We cannot assume every time an animal gets picked up it’s a result of someone doing something wrong.
Shelly assures the committee discretion is used in those cases. She recognizes accidents do happen and shares a recent incident where a family went on vacation and left the animal with a caretaker. The animal got out and the caretaker never reported it. Animal Control picked up the animal and thankfully the family returned during the five day hold period at the Police Department clinic so it never made it to the shelter and the family was able to reclaim it. Shelly did not cite the owner in this case.
Member raises concerns in cases where the family does not return in time to reclaim the animal and the animal ends up at the shelter and it is euthanized.
In cases like this a micro-chip is beneficial. Also beneficial is the posting pictures of the lost animals on the web.
The sad fact is even with things put in place there is always a chance you can lose your animal. What the town can do is educate the public as best we can, put policies and procedures in place to ensure the best possible system.
Member recommends the positive approach to the community: education and registration of our animals with no hidden agenda. We are not going to hit you with something else in year two or three. If we produce a positive education program and people understand that we are helping them be better pet owners, 95% of the people will listen.
Shelly do you agree with mandatory spay and neutering? Even though Shelly may have personal opinions about mandatory spay/neuter programs, she believes it would be difficult to implement and enforce a mandatory program.
Spay and Neuter Ordinances / Incentives
Combine issues identified in brainstorming session. (15 minutes)
Prioritize issues in terms of developing specific recommendations for council. (60 minute)
Chair explains during this session we will prioritize the list and then come back with the information of what works and what does not work and then we will vote on what we want to recommend to Council as a task force. This does not mean items fall off the list and go away. The long term solution includes all the items on the board and that can be put into a road map, but Council is looking for direction of how we get this off the ground. What is the most important areas the task force needs to be looking at.
Each member is asked to pick from the brainstorming list what you believe to be the most important issues to present to council. Everyone gets three votes, you can pick three different issues or if one is more important to you all three of your votes can go to the one issue.
Enforcement of Law
Education
Continued oversight
Licensing/Registration/ Cash Incentives
Volunteerism
Pet Shops
Animal Control Practices/ Ordinances
Low cost spay/neuter
Funding
Feral cats (decided to treat as separate issue)
Decision is made to link Animal Control to Ordinances and Licensing/Registration to Incentives
Top three items picked by task force to address:
Education – 10 votes
Licensing/Registration- includes incentive based – 6 votes
Low cost spay/neuter – 6 votes
For the rest of this meeting and the next meeting is where we need to concentrate on to get concrete suggestions for Staff and Council on what this task force believes would be effective things for the town to look at implementing.
All members agree even though continued oversight and ongoing evaluations did not get votes it should be included in the final report to Council along with the feral cat issue. It may be recommended to create additional advisory groups to oversee these specific areas in order to continue to pursue the issues.
Referencing spay and neutering, member shares to group that the Town of Cary has the authority to have an ordinance as long as it is reasonable and directly related to address a legitimate public concern.
Education:
Members question how effective that law could be when there are ordinances on the books now that are being ignored, for example the leash law.
Member asked if more officers would address the problem. I can’t say that would address the problem; I can say more officers available would help educate the public.
Member asked if pet owners were better educated would reduce the need for more officers? Yes
It is recommended that the town start an education program in the schools.
The task force is going to identify the issues and look at existing education programs available to invite in to speak to the committee in order to guide us through the process.
Once we identify who we need to educate we can then focus on the types of education we will need to offer. It will be important to include available resources in our community in the final report for the Town of Cary staff to work with.
Member raises concerns about how far we as a committee will drill down on the issues. Yes we should make recommendations regarding education in the schools, but are we recommending specific literature, brochures or contacts? Chair explains that is an exercise for Town of Cary staff to pursue, given an eight week task force we are not going to create the master education plan for the Town of Cary. The purpose of this task force is to identify what is needed to help set up that framework so the Town, Council and Staff are bringing citizens together. Moving forward it will be up to staff to contact organizations to leverage existing resources to address the issues.
Chair clarifies that in the report recommendations they offer will be at the level of describing the types of programs and the communities targeted and such as that. He raises concerns not to inundate the Staff with too much information.
Licensing and Registration:
Member suggests education needs to be provided as well as an incentive as to the importance of micro-chipping rather than just mandating it.
The Town of Cary just completed an event called Dog Days. This event was held on June 7, 2008 and includes reduced cost for rabies $5 and micro chipping for $10.
Member recommends the town do a better job getting that information out. They mention the Animal Control website be expanded to include these events and the responsibilities of pet ownership in Cary.
Recommended to link microchip number to Cary registration to include what company you have your micro chip with.
Low cost spay/neuter:
Was this part of the tier program suggested for registration and licensing? For example, an unaltered animal is ‘x’ number of dollars, spayed/neutered is ‘y’ number of dollars and spay/neutered, and microchip is ‘z’ number of dollars.
Referencing Durham County’s stats for the program mention at 7/808 meeting includes revenue of $350,000 and they are linking it to tax bills next year and anticipate collecting $1.7 million. Their fees are $10 for spay/neutered animals and $75 for un-sterilized animals.
Member raises point to make recommendations to Council that has worked in other communities similar to ours and were they have had the most success.
All in agreement to educate the people on the issues and why it’s important, including spay and neuter, and point them in the direction of low cost options and resources available to the community.
There are many people out there that would like to spay/neuter their animal but going to a full cost full service Vet is too costly so they do not pursue other options.
Chair clarifies the task force is not going to come forward with a solution to low cost spay and neutering. The task force can identify it is an issue and provide existing resources to the town to look at. It may become enough of an issue the town decides to implement a program that helps with spay and neutering. Identifying low cost spay/neutering resources is a huge piece of the puzzle we can provide to lead to solution.
If we decide to go with a different licensing structure could we recommend to Council, for example, those funds are earmarked for a special spay/neuter fund? Chair agrees that is a good idea, whenever I look at a differential fee I am completely on board with you taking the money that you are bringing in to fund some other programs that you know will help solve the problem.
There are many organizations, for example, Animal Kind, that run out of money on a regular basis. What a lot of people do not know is that there are many thrift stores in Raleigh like the Retails Thrift Store, that if you buy things they fund spay/neuter programs. There are attempts to funding these programs.
On the topic of always available low cost spay/neuters a member shares a conversation with the Veterinarian associated with the Spay Neuter Assistance Program (SNAP Van) and the Pet Overpopulation Patrol Van about the need in Cary for a program. The Veterinarian was surprised to hear the cost of spay and neutering was an issue in the Town of Cary. These organizations are always available 24/7.
The point is it may not always be what you consider low income people who qualify as needing public assistance; it’s sometimes middle of the road people that cannot afford to pay $300 or more so they decide to just be careful with their dog.
HB684 for state funding for sterilization did not pass due to funding, but will be reintroduced next year.
Chair suggested we may want to consider breaking down into workgroups with the information that we have now and start writing on and building the framework of our recommendations.
Member asked to consider bringing in literature to read versus a person to speak to the committee; there are concerns it would be to one sided.
Chair reminds it’s important for all members to be opened minded to all resources available.
Concerns were made that breaking up into subgroups is not a good idea. Information should be presented to the group as a whole at the same time.
Chair explained the document the task force will present to Council will include a layout to staff of the process the committee went through to present what the task force felt are the important issues for the town to address and include recommendations on solutions to the problem.
When you say it is part of the solution, the solution for what? The solution for the number of animals going to shelters and the number of animals euthanized. Whatever that number is it can be less and that is why the town formed this task for to come back with the recommendation on.
Measurements of the programs will be put in place by the staff.
Guest speakers to be invited;
Education:
Sara Sprouse, AKC
Vanessa Budnik, SPCA
Amanda Arrington, Humane Society
Licensing and Registration:
Can we do teleconference calls from someone out of the area? Chair explains his feeling looking at best practices of what is happening somewhere else as opposed to best practices on what we could bring to the table today to the Town of Cary citizens. He thinks we will get more traction on what we can bring to the table today.
Member is concerned local is not going to have a lot of statistical information to back up success with regards to the programs we are looking at.
Member recommends the No Kill Advocacy Group in California and Tompkins County, NY which has an open shelter and have a successful educational program without mandatory spay and neutering.
Do they have deliverables? The AKC has deliverables (coloring books, and literature) to pass out. If there is a cost involved we need to capture that when we develop the program.
Chair shares we have the opportunity to bring a lot of different resources and approaches to the table for staff to consider and they can pick and choose what they think will work for Cary.
All members agree when we bring in someone to speak we need to clearly define the purpose for which we want that speaker to address this committee.
Chair explains we will take part of our meeting next week to develop what questions we believe are important to ask the guest speaker and identify resources to turn over to the town.
The other part of the meeting we are to address the shelter issue. One of the specific missions of the task force is to report back to the Town of Cary what the committee’s opinion is on whether the County has addressed the three areas of concern.
Identify which of the issues will require additional resources in order to make specific recommendations for council. (15 minutes)
Members agree resources will be identified for all issues.
Public Comments (15 minute time limit)
Members of the public may give brief comments to the Task Force
Does the Police Department have a mapping process/software analysis available for Animal Control violation/calls much like they do for crime mapping?
Yes, Deputy Chief explains, we do the exact same thing when we have cases that are problematic, for example, abuse and neglect, running at large, vicious/dangerous animal and those sorts of things. We track those incidents in a police report exactly the same way we do for a car break in or a vandalism or what have you. In that report is a lot of statistical information that is extracted and analyzed. We do have the ability to analyze animal call, but not to the degree our crime data is analyzed.
In terms of the Police Departments budget; concerns are brought up that animal control has all the resources available in the police department in terms of data analysis, identifying trends, and problem areas.
Shelly and DC Nickalson assure the analysis resources are available to the Animal Control Department.
Does Animal Control enforce all the ordinances that are on the books now? Yes.
Shelly and DC Nickalson explain all ordinances are enforced, but it is under the discretion of the Animal Control Officer to consider all the variables to determine what the minimum we can do to address the issue.
Clarification was made on the controversy of puppies coming from animal shelters and being shipped up north is that there is a concern that only puppies are being rescued and not adult dogs.
The advantage of including the micro chip number when you register with the Town of Cary is that the number is on file with the town.
Adjournment: Meeting adjourned at 9:23 p.m.