Yesterday the City of Los Angeles had on the agenda to consider whether to support SB250.  Since the Mayor's Office has been sending people, at City expense, to Sacramento for each hearing, it seems that he has unilaterally decided to support this.  He is evidently not concerned about the increased killing in Los Angeles since the end of February.  Kill rates for dogs are up 24%. 

His advisors, including SB250 sponsor, who was at the City Council meeting today, would say that the reason the numbers are so bad is that the economy and home foreclosures are so bad.  But, as the chart below shows, the numbers in Los Angeles far exceed those elsewhere in the State.  And this Chart specifically shows counties with high foreclosure rates and where the economy is far worse than Los Angeles. 

Maybe the City Council just wants company.  Unfortunately it would come at the expense of owned dogs and cats.  

. . And Still No Amendments

August 3rd and those amendments that Florez promised the Senate just have not appeared. 

It would have been hard to predict at the beginning of the legislative year and anyone could make Assembly Member Levine look responsive but Florez has managed to do this.  For those of you who have forgotten the Committee hearing, it is here. 

One of the problems that the Senator has is that his bill makes the 500,000 people who went to one or more AKC events last year irresponsible owners with this bill.  Some because they do not have their tags on in conformation events and some because they have to be off lead to compete in performance events.  And with Los Angeles Animal Control conducting sting operations so charge people training their dogs at the parks; can you doubt that other cities will follow their lead.  One dog show sweep alone could net almost $500,000 in fines and court costs.

STILL NO AMENDMENTS

Here we are, a week after Senator Florez announced he had made several amendments to the bill to satisfy prior commitments. In fact, he was prepared to hand them to the B&P Committee. But since they would not consider them, he put them away. No one has seen them; many have called his office and requested them. But there is no response.

And SB250 remains as bad a before; only we are smarter now. Remember when Levine and Boks were telling us MSN was just a "tool" to get to the bad people? We heard that again in B&P Committee last week. But now that Animal Services is using animal control and LAPD manpower to conduct raids in the nice part of town, we know that it is not tool. It is a hammer to get the people who are not part of the problem, who almost all have altered, licensed dogs. But some don't keep their tags on their dogs and some actually take them off leash to throw a frisbee or a ball. Thank goodness Senator Florez is on the job to allow every animal control group in the state to take a page out of the Los Angeles book.

And the interesting thing is that the California Animal Control Directors Association is not supporting this bill. They know that impounds will increase; they know that euthanasia will increase. And they know the irresponsible people will turn in one dog and go get another.

Meanwhile we wait for the amendments and continue to get our letters in. Remember organization letters in by tomorrow afternoon. If you are worried they will not get there, send a copy of your organization letter to CDOC at 818-332-9690. We even bought a new fax machine today just to keep up with the volume of letters. Letters to the Committee members can go all week but should be there by Monday.

CDOC will be meeting with Committee Member on Monday and Tuesday.

LETTERS ARE COMING IN

The CDOC fax machine is running constantly and we assume/hope we are getting just a small percentage of the Club letters that are opposing SB250. Please remember that Wednesday is the deadline so you want to get them in by then.

Dog owners in Ventura got busy on Sunday and signed hundreds of letters opposing SB250. Of course, under SB250 everyone at the dog show was in violation of this new law making them subject to mandatory spay and neuter.

And horse owners are starting to get into the Act as well.

This week you need to focus on members of appropriations. After that committee, if this continues to move forward, you will need to again focus on your Assembly Member.

State Employees Continue to Be Paid - IOUs or Not

You might think that would the threat of no income in the coming weeks and months due to the IOUs that legislators and staffers would be frantically working on real solutions. I would be if my income was going to be cut off.

But here is how it works - really almost every year. We have no budget. Almost all employees belong to a Sacramento credit union which makes no-interest loans which equal their salary - because they know that sooner or later the money will be there. By providing this service the credit union has a captive (and happy) membership.

So if you are thinking that cow tails and dog reproduction will now be traded for work on significant California problems, dream on. While many of us have taken pay cuts, are "really" furloughed or have lost our jobs, the legislators and staffers have none of those concerns.

The only incentive they have to address this mess is that it could interfere with their break from July 17 to August 17.

Continuing Raids in Pavley's District

The raids are continuing in full force. Squads of animal control officers and police officers are conducting their early morning raids in the parks on the Westside. Animal Control warned us that this would happen. They said Los Angeles needed their new law so they could have a new tool to use against those people who abuse the system. ANd what is more abusive that Westside soccer moms and movie executives letting their dogs play together off leash while they get together and chat.

Swooping down in vans and LAPD vehicles, they are rounding up and citing people left and right. They have no information, just issue their citations. Now, under SB250, all of the people who were cited just lost their ability to ever own another intact dog. Because they now fall into the category that is forbidden by SB250

FINANCE OPPOSES SB250

The California State Department of Finance report has finally been made public. For some reason, it was held back and was never seen by the Appropriations Committee in the Senate. But since Florez took pains to say all the costs will fall on local government rather than the state, it is clear that he was aware of the contents.

It says in part

"This bill would result in a substantial increase to the General Fund cost of the Animal Adoption mandate. The Animal Adoption mandate currently costs more than $24 million annually to reimburse local government shelters' cost to care for impounded animals. Given the current economic climate, requiring the owners of dogs and cats to pay for sterilization procedures would result in more animals being abandoned or surrendered because of the owners' inability to finance the sterilization procedure and pay additional fines."

"Mandatory spay and neuter provisions have failed throughout California at the local government level. According to the National Animal Interest Alliance (NAIA), Los Angeles City experienced a 20 percent increase in shelter impounds and a 30 percent increase in shelter euthanasias after passage of a mandatory spay and neuter ordinance. NAIA also indicates that in Santa Cruz County, animal control costs doubled after mandatory spay and neuter ordinances were passed."

The entire report can be seen here on the

links page.

Whatever Florez says, a precedent has been set with the Hayden Bill. All it will take is another lawsuit (probably from the City of Los Angeles which already receives more than $4 million in reimbursements already) and these will, as the Department of Finance says, become state costs.