Breeding Contempt

It is time for me to cover the last animal control proposal: Breeder permits. This proposal has a host of problems.

The original language requires a $100 breeders permit for anyone that "sells, trades, or gives away" the offspring of their unaltered dog or cat. This is problematic for a number of reasons. First, it penalizes a person whose pet gets pregnant before they can get it neutered. I have seen where many veterinarian organizations are recommending adolescent neutering but not many people do this. Many times neutering a pet is an economic decision. Save up to get the pet neutered or wait until the animal shelter is offering vouchers again and gamble that princess doesn't get pregnant. If they lose the bet, the pet owner has to keep the offspring until they can get their pet neutered. That could be a problem.

This problem affects rescuers as well. They rescue a dog or cat that was mistreated and had pups or kittens. It may take a long time to nurse that animal to where it is healthy enough to be neutered. Until the rescued animal is either sterilized, transferred to another owner or euthanized, the rescuer is stuck with the offspring or forced to buy a breeders permit for an animal he won't be keeping. No exception. No appeal.

The original language also makes it more difficult to convict a puppy mill operator. Even if they advertise in the paper they have pets for sale, unless you can prove they actually sold, traded or gave away an animal, you only have intent to be a breeder. It is likely the city will add the words "offers for" to the sells, trades, or gives away which will effectively close that loophole but you still have a problematic breeders ordinance. There is another loophole because a breeder is defined as someone that owns an unaltered animal and sells, trades or gives away the offspring. If the breeder gives away the unaltered animal to a friend first, then they can sell the offspring with no problem. The friend can then give the unaltered animal back once all the offspring are sold. Irresponsible breeders will game the system and they can be very good at finding loopholes. Which brings me to my next point.

There is an overlooked group of pet owners I will call the hobby breeders. These include people that participate in dog and cat shows. These shows require that the animals are unaltered. In addition, many owners of hunting and working dogs don't want to neuter their dogs because they feel it affects their natural hunting and herding instincts. We have vasectomies in our ordinances as an acceptable method of sterilization because of just this issue. These hobby breeders are not in it to make money. This is not their business. It is frequently their passion. They do breed and sell some animals. The breeding is frequently in an attempt to produce a better animal whether for show or for work. Some hobbyists I know spend more money on their animals and shows then they will ever make selling animals. These hobbyists don't breed for money, they breed for the love of their animals and hobby. They take pride in their animals and care for them properly. With few exceptions, they are good neighbors.

Hobby breeders as a rule try to work with the government and other groups to solve animal control problems. They will reluctantly accept a small permit fee and reasonable inspections as long as they can see some value to the city and to themselves. I don't think that the proposed ordinance changes as they stand today will be seen that way. They will be seen as inflexible, arbitrary, punitive, and invasive, and not really addressing the problem. The problem is not with what a puppy mill or hoarder has but what they do with what they have. Most of the suggested ordinance changes do not address the bad behaviors.

In my next article I will give you my thoughts on the changes I think the code of ordinances needs to address these animal control problems.

The Times They Have A'Changed

I have been busy this morning changing every appliance in the house to "spring forward". Thanks to our gov't nannies, I get to re-familiarize myself with all the household electronics twice a year. Right now, I'm trying to decide whether it is more cost-effective to continue my search for the manual on my new watch or just go buy another one. I guess that could chalk up to economic stimulus except that I'm sure a new watch would have been made in China.

Some stray thoughts on this fine and expedited Sunday morning.

I went to the sidewalks meeting at Lincoln. City staff has done some really good work. They had a map showing a 5 year history of pedestrian/vehicle accidents, 250+ total. As one member of the public commented, right at one per week. Higher than we might want, maybe less than a tax-increasing emergency. They did not have data on age/cause/even time of day. For instance, we saw one cluster of four at S Chadbourne and Av. L A fellow ventured "hey, there's a school there". I mentioned, purely in passing, yes, there is a private school a block south and around the corner, BUT, right there we have a beer-joint. Any connection; nobody had that info. Just pointing out, there might be some details worth fussing about, but there will be at least one more public meeting (no date yet) and the public is invited to chime in online. My opinion, if you bother to e-mail, staff WILL read it, they genuinely care about doing this right.

The consensus was new development; absolutely. As to existing streets, there lies the rub. Folks, I live on Bryan St. a three block long residential. It Ts into Bell, it is a short-cut to nothing, the kind of street kids play on without having to interrupt their games very often. As I told staff, if you were to come along and promise all my neighbors new sidewalks with zero assessment, they would tell you to go away, we don't need the construction nuisance.

Now, turn the corner from my house, walk north on Bell St.; taking your life in your hands, we have gone from a comfortable neighborhood stroll to 40 MPH dodge-cars and that's if everybody is obeying the speed limit that day. Otra vez, to cure that, some of the houses west side of Bell are right on the road, build a sidewalk, we're in somebody's living room AND charging them for removing their front porch. Look back to my earlier post, I asked, if we decide a sidewalk on one side works, do both sides pay, or do we just assess the lucky guy who gives up part of his lawn?

Aside from such quibbles, staff has done a bang-up job on this. A good point raised was how much pedestrian traffic increase we might see, if the pedestrians felt safe on a sidewalk as opposed to playing dodge-car. If we build it, will they come? I like to think so. I see people actually drive to, then walk along, Concho St. along the river. Might be the scenery, but day after day, same view, I don't think so, they are looking for a safe place to walk off calories. Give them that safety in their neighborhoods, they might walk there. Lots of benefits from that: pounds shed, healthy hearts, a community-watch by-product, heck, if we ain't careful we might get to know our neighbors!

By and large, we came from the meeting impressed that staff has a handle on prioritizing a good idea. There will be another such meeting, it is not yet scheduled, but I will say this: if you are interested, attend. Unlike some "public" forums of days gone by, staff is not "telling" us what is about to happen, they are really listening.

I almost missed my Sunday morning services (the network news shows) on account of the time change. Since I didn't miss them, I will save you the trouble; You missed NOTHING! The party in power is lying and mis-characterizing the party out of power, which in turn is outrageously lying about the new administration. I'm shocked, shocked I say to hear this.

San Angelo has so far been insulated from this downturn. We are fretting about 5% unemployment, a figure Michigan would die for. Housing has slowed, but local developers are still building. The "underwater" mortgage market isn't here, our home values actually increased about 4% last quarter. Realtors who are taking unemployment elsewhere might be scrambling here, but they are still selling houses. The oilfield is taking a hit, but Karnak predicts that will turn around.

We have seen our new President advise investors to "buy", something I have never seen. BTW, following that bit of advice Thursday, the market dropped 7%. Might be why former Presidents stayed out of the investment counseling business. OK, give him a break, he's on a steep learning curve. Markets can live with more or less gov't control, but what any market lusts after in its heart is STABILITY! ie. if the investor invests, the rules won't change next Tuesday.

Trivia exercize for the political junkie: Google "Aaron Schock". Not everything out of the Land of Lincoln is an embarrassment to his name.

Stability being too much to wish for, in the interim Karnak is putting his limited money into canned goods and hard metals.

Buying Jobs

Economic development is back in the news. There are actually two stories here. First, we have the same old story where we use "incentives" (i.e. tax money) trying to snare jobs from corporate herds that might pass our way. This type of economic hunting (where we try to steal jobs from other communities) is seldom very effective. The good news is that call centers have been successful here, so there is a strong likelihood that these jobs might outlast the incentive payments.

The second story is really more important. We now have a loan program, the Grow San Angelo Fund, targeted to small but growing businesses. We are talking about companies that have survived the initial start up pains and are ready to take on the pain of additional growth. These companies, often called gazelles, are where the real economic growth (somewhere around 70% of job creation) occurs. This section of our local economy is frequently overlooked and has historically been poorly served.

In my last post on ED, I talked about economic gardening. This fund, if used properly, can grow our own local economic garden. We must use it as fertilizer. We can grow the vast majority of the good jobs we want and need.

Buy the Book

One thing you will discover if you do much research on issues is that there is a tremendous amount of paper involved. The introduction of the computer into government and business has had an unintended result: We are creating more documents today then ever, and they are getting bigger. Lets take a look at some of the paper involved in the Capital Improvement Plan being developed.

The CIP will a number of sections detailing needs and justifications. These, in turn, will reflect what is in the city's Comprehensive Plan. This is a very large document that coordinates all other planning. It is both the starting point and the executive summary of a number of other plans.

One of these other plans is the Parks, Recreation and Open Space Master Plan. This is a 250+ page study plus a large update on what recreation and parks should look like here in the future. This report plus updates cost the city a lot of money, and is only available on paper. There is so much there I doubt many people outside of the parks and recreation department know more about it than the power point slide show that was presented by the consultant who developed the plan. As far as this type of plan goes, it seems to be pretty good, but there are some concerns.

Our paid consultants started with guidelines from the National Recreation and Parks Association. They then did local surveys, polls, and focus groups to fine tune and prioritize the results. A bit of fine tuning, include lists, charts maps of parks and and proposed sites, eight by ten color glossies with circles and arrows and they had a completed plan. So where is the problem.

First off, I find the NRPA guidelines a bit too generic. They start with a plan developed by Kansas City, and then expand it to fit San Angelo and New York City. I will grant you that the hope is that a consultant will really treat each study as unique, but reality, time and money have a way of interfering with that. What most of these reports end up being is a list of about 2 dozen one size fits all sports and recreation activities in the order of their popularity on the last poll and a list of possible sites. They include cost estimates for each.

The problem I have is that we end up with a list with some odd resources on it (do we really need a city owned Ice Rink?) We also see no mention of many locally popular recreations (No, I am not going to mention Mr. Ryans professional Billiard Hall.)

The other problem is that we see project appear on various plans just because some consultant said you should have one so you can keep with New York City, even though the money could be better spent on water, roads, sewer, or even recreations that might stimulate the city.

The unintended consequence of the ease with which computers allow reports and plans to be generated is there are now so many of them, and they are so thick that it is almost impossible to know what is in them. You do have to be careful that some project doesn't sneak onto the budget just because is was one page in a large plan that nobody had time to read.