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Next Monday, Boks will bring up an item for Commission vote, which, if approved, is the first step towards cat licensing.
If passed, all adopted or redeemed cats will be assessed a new $5 fee and the cat will be "registered" with the owner and will be given a tag to be attached to a collar.
This new fee is added onto the already markedly increased adoption fee, which, of course, will reduce the number of cats adopted. The new collar I.D. tag will be in addition to the mandatory microchip. Perhaps next they will require a GPS unit for satellite tracking (I like that idea).
This is the first step towards cat licensing. If we get cat licensing, adoptions will decrease further because a lot of people will not want to get a fourth or fifth cat.
Also, if license registration becomes law, rescuers and fosters may be put in a bad position.
Also, a lot of people do not want to be on any government's lists.
Naturally, as the cost of cat licensing goes up, adoptions will go down.
Personally I am for licensing even if the rest of the animal community is not, but I think any registration should be part of the adoption process where all the information is gathered anyway.
You decide and go vote.
Boks is trying to sneak this by by having a Monday vote when many are away in Sacramento lobbying.
Also, the actual proposal and report cannot be accessed on the Internet clicking on the report URL.
Below is the meeting agenda. Look at item 3 on page 2.
http://laanimalservices.org/PDF/commission/2008/071408-agd.pdf
Yet, if you try to click on the Cat Registration Fee report, it does not come up.
http://laanimalservices.org/about_commission.htm
In my opinion the fee and the preceding adoption fee increases are very bad policy. Boks was pushed into doing these very stupid fee increases by Council, led by that idiot Councilmember Rosendahl.
Ed has always gone overbudget on food, medication and vet care, as well as fee forgiveness for rescuers and the general public. I applaud Boks for this and see Council and the Mayor's Office being penny wise and pound foolish here.
We need to get rid of Villaraigosa in the worst way. Hopefully Obama will send him to Washington to be a lackey there. I plan on running for Mayor as I am at least as incompetent as Tony, therefore am highly qualified to lead LA's increasingly corrupt government.
4 comments:
I think it's a fat chance that Obama would be dumb enough to hire Villaraigosa. He needs to be voted out.
"I plan on running for Mayor as I am at least as incompetent as Tony, therefore am highly qualified to lead LA's increasingly corrupt government."
Gosh, you're funny!
All my cats are microchipped and they haven't had any problems.
As a matter of fact, I took them all to LA Animal Services and it only cost $25 each to get them chipped. Went one after another, two and three at a time for chipping. Never had a problem, no questions asked. Nothing. Just did the chipping and went back a couple of times a day w/ a few cats over a few days. Not one problem.
I wouldn't mind getting my buddies licensed. No one is going to give you a problem unless the idiot neighbors complain with stupid things that LA Animal Services is forced to investigate.
No one is going to take your cats. They will only tell you to correct a problem if they see a problem----a really bad smell or a cat looks sick, needs medical attention, or is running around without a face---like some of the white cats running loose on the street who can't take the sun and they're got cancerous wounds on their face, ears and nose, etc.
I agree with you that licensing is good. Especially the satellite tracking system.
A guy came over my house desperately 20 minutes ago looking for his 16 year-old cat.
He said the cat doesn't have a collar and he's not chipped. He's neutered, and really skinny.
He said the cat has scratches, holes and sores on his face from scratching so much. Cat's been gone for four days since the owner of the house took the tree down in her front yard.
The guy said "the cat was on his last leg, anyway."
His picture is not on the LA Animal SErvices website yet; but then the guy has been gone for four days playing with his band in Oklahoma. The lady who he is renting from was supposed to be watching the cat.
It would be an awsome thing to have satellite tracking for such things. If the cat got hit by a car and is lying somewhere still alive and unable to move, or dying under a bush somewhere, we may be able to have some idea of the whereabouts of the cat. If he's lying under a tire somewhere, we might look in the general vicinity if we have a location from the satellite.
I would put a tracking system on each and every one of my cats without a qualm. Wouldn't care if I'm at risk of getting a visit from an Animal Care and Control officer. He/she ain't gonna find anything wrong with any of my cats or with cleanliness around here because it's what I had to quit my job for and all I ever do now. Keep the place neat and clean for them--not for anyone else.
I'd rather have satellite tracking and licensing for my cats and never ever have to worry about where they are or where they have escaped to ever again. If someone trapped any of my cats and dumped them somewhere because they didn't want them around and didn't want me to locate them at the shelter, I would be able to find them with a tracking system, dead or alive.
I want to know where my cats are at ALL times.
Good post.
$5 extra to get your cat licensed is no biggie if you want the cat. Many people spend more on soda pop and bubble gum, but that's just my input.
I think what the above poster doesn't recognize is there is a cat registration/tag already in place. It is optional. This new registration would be mandatory. It is a code amendment to the existing optional registration.
I wouldn't be surprised if the city would use this to enforce the limit law and not allow a person to come back and adopt more cats if they already had the last three registered.
I also disagree with mandatory licensing of cats because I see it as an additional barrier to getting cats out of the shelter and some people don't want to be part of some government registry.
They say it is a one time fee. Who's to say that, in the future, they will start making it annual? Also, how many who come to claim their cat will not do so if they have to be registered. The dept already has the mandatory micro chipping in place. That should suffice. If you want "dual protection" than you have the option (already in place) of registering (option being the operatibe word).
If this were to go in conjunction with upping the cat limit (anyone over three must register), I wouldn't object so much. As it stands, this seems like it will only be counterproductive to the goal of saving lives.
I think the real question is how much of a genuine problem is cat hoarding? I know it exists, but is this just a smokescreen action so Boks can appear to be doing something positive, but in fact it's just another way to smack down the rescuers?
There was some talk a while back, never acted upon that I know of, to increase dog and cat limits in L.A. I think that's a really good idea. It's certainly obvious that legal limits mean nothing to genuine hoarders. If someone has a problem recognizing that they have too many cats, that the cats are sick, or dangerously unsocialized, the law is not going to be an obstacle for them.
But many genuine rescuers could (and some do) take care of well over three cats just fine. It would certainly help if those individuals didn't have to live in fear of a trademarked "Boks PR/Animal Planet audition" bust. And more cats would get good, responsible homes, which should be the goal.
It's certainly not hard to find cats who need good homes. But this would keep rescuers from getting cats out of LAAS, where they only have one other way out.
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