Tag: puppy mills

Hours 2:45-4:00, 11/15/22

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Item 19: Back to animals, shelters, and puppy mills. Last meeting was the first reading, and this is the second reading.

Recall when we left off last week, there were two big debates:

  1. How can the animal shelter distinguish community cats from someone’s much-loved pet, when they pick them up?
  2. Should we ban pet stores from sourcing puppies from puppy mills?

1. On Trap/Neuter/Release vs Stray-Holds

Here is what the animal experts proposed:

Healthy outdoor cats do not get picked up.  Except that they can be picked up, and checked to see if they’ve been spayed/neutered. If they haven’t, they can be taken to the shelter, then spayed/neutered, and then returned to where they were picked up.  This is Trap/Neuter/Release, or TNR.

Here is what Council is worried about: What if Fluffy the house cat escapes, and bolts and gets lost?  And suppose Fluffy has no visible identification. She gets picked up, spayed, and returned to the neighborhood in which she was lost. The owner does not get a chance to find her at the shelter and reclaim her, and Fluffy stays lost.

The experts say that only 2% of shelter cats are reconnected with their owners, but councilmembers are still worried.

(I suspect that this is why mandatory micro-chipping is a vital part of the policy.  But that got scrapped somewhere along the line. Without mandatory micro-chipping, there will definitely be borderline cases where it’s really hard to tell community cats from half-tamed outdoor cats from skittish indoor cats that got loose.

But mandatory micro-chipping has its problems, too: how do you publicize and facilitate it? how do you get everyone to go along with it?)

Alyssa asks if it’s possible to publicize cats that are being returned under TNR? That way I could check the website and see if Fluffy was returned to a specific location, and try to go find her there.

They say yes, they could do that.

Mark Gleason is also worried about cats being spayed/neutered against the owner’s will.  He wants the cats held for 48 hours before the mandatory spay/neuter, and then held for another 24 hours to let them recover from surgery.

Here’s the moment of the night that made me laugh:

Saul says, “I’m going to throw a monkey wrench in the conversation. What if the cat has been exposed to rabies, and doesn’t show any signs of rabies?”

The animal guy answers, “Any animal that’s potentially been exposed to rabies has to go through a ten day quarantine.”

Saul says, “But you wouldn’t know that. Because they’re not showing any signs. What’s the procedure then?”

Yeah, ya wise guy! Whatsya procedure then?

The answer is, “In the case that we don’t know….then we don’t know. I hope that never happens.”

Saul says ominously, “It happened on Barbara Drive, years back. Just thought I’d throw a monkey wrench in the conversation.”

CHECKMATE, ANIMAL ENTHUSIASTS. Don’t even try to come before Saul without vetting your double-secret rabies exposure policy. His work is done.

So where does the conversation stand? Two amendments were passed last time that the experts are strongly opposed to. Everyone is worried about how loved pets will get caught up in the system.  (And Mark is hyper-concerned about owners’ rights to have Quiverfull cats.)

Alyssa suggests that we revert back to the original language proposed by the professionals.  She points out that the experts are devoted to animals, and are proposing policy that’s been refined over years, and we should not dispose of their expertise out of sheer hubris.  That as long as the shelter is appropriately funded, they will work hard to reunite pets with families, and will act in the best interests of the animals.   (This is my opinion as well.)

Mark gets fired up. He’s convinced that if we revert to the original, that they will start euthanizing cats left and right.  It’s really astonishing how little Mark trusts certain people in certain situations. 

The shelter people answer his euthanasia concerns: Right now, we euthanize cats immediately if there is a medical need to end suffering.  The only other reason we euthanize cats is due to overcrowding. This policy lets us keep from having overcrowding.  Mark, your stray-hold amendment will keep us in an over-crowding cycle.

Finally, Jane says “There’s only five of us here.” (Shane Scott has gone home sick at this point) “Can we send this back to committee, to hammer out language separating community cats from pets-cats?”

The vote to postpone until January:
Yes: Jane, Mark, Alyssa, Saul
No: Max

So it passes.

Onto Issue 2: The Sourcing of Puppies from Puppy Mills for Pet Stores

They voted to postpone before they ever got to the puppy mill part of the ordinance. So this got absolutely no discussion! It was very weird.

I was so confused.  But keep reading! It gets one final gasp during Q&A at the end of the meeting.

…

Item 20: Remember the legislative lobby agenda from last time? It’s now up for a final vote.

Jane Hughson wants to strike one of the amendments that Max made last time, about whether or not we should lobby the state legislature to let us levy fees on Texas State.

Clearly some conversation has taken place behind the scenes. Both Chase Stapp and Fire Chief Stevens hop on and say that it’s futile and counterproductive, because other college towns have tried, and the State University lobby is ridiculously powerful. It would be better to go talk to the university directly and see if we can get them to partner with us in some new way. After all, there’s a new president.

The meeting is winding down, and Max is pissed. He calls everyone apathetic and makes some barb about for-profit universities that I don’t follow.

Alyssa tells him that she’s going to vote to remove the clause, but she offers to go to Erin Zwiener with him, and research the issue, and help draft a statement that they can give to the legislative committee. I don’t know if he accepted her offer.

The clause is removed (4-1 vote) and the main motion passes (5-0 vote).

…

Question and answer from the press and public: One community member asks “What happened to the Puppy Mill part of the animal ordinance? Is there any way you can deal with that part?”

YES! Thank you! it was bizarre that they tabled the entire motion, and did not say one word about the most controversial part!

The lawyer says they could do this. You’d have to have a motion to reconsider the item, and then you could start discussing the puppy mill part.

Alyssa makes the motion, saying she’d really like to close out this one part. ME TOO!

The vote to reconsider the item:
Deal with puppy mills now: Jane, Max, Alyssa
No: Mark and Saul

So that failed, because it requires four votes for anything to pass. I do not understand how Mark manages to be on the wrong side of every last single vote, but there you have it.

(What I want to know still is: can the puppy mill part be brought back sooner than January? Or does it languish for another two months? We are just left hanging!)

Hours 0:00-2:54, 11/1/22

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Citizen comment: A ton of people turned out from Pick-a-Pet to fight the puppy mill ordinance. Mostly customers, with one or two employees.  Their main talking points were:

  • We love our pet so much!
  • The employees love animals so much, and the atmosphere is so nice and caring there!
  • Sometimes you just want a pure-breed, right?
  • Why do you want to close down this nice store?

These people seemed earnest, but the arguments above are all bunk.  You can have really loving, sweet employees and still buy your puppies in bulk from Minnesota farms with 3000 puppies and atrocious conditions for the breeding dogs. None of these things are dispositive.

Also, under the proposal, you can still buy your favorite pure-bred dog from a small scale breeder, where you can tour the facilities and admire the happy, handsome parents of your new doggo. And this nice store with loving employees can pivot to selling pet supplies and offering pet adoptions, like PetSmart does.

Another talking point is: 

  • We’ve been open a year, and none of our pets have ended up at the shelter, so we’re not making the stray animal problem worse!

This is also not really the point. The point is the puppy mills.

The speakers were pretty over-the-top with the mushiness. Their pups have transformed their families from bleak grayness to shimmers and sequins, and brought happiness to their little girls for the first time in their Dickensian existences. Only pure breeds from pet stores can bring little girls that kind of feels.

Stay tuned – we will hash out this ordinance thoroughly in Hours 4:00-5:08!

…

Item 16: About 40 acres near 5 mile dam:

It’s going to be apartment complexes.  It had been zoned General Commercial, and now it’s CD-4, which can mean a lot of things. But they openly admitted that it’s going to be apartment complexes.  

Should we apply our favorite criteria?

Housing stock: How long will it take to build? How much housing will it provide? What is the forecasted housing deficit at that point? Is it targeting a price-point that serves what San Marcos needs?

  • Pester the Planning Department directors to start providing an ongoing, updated needs assessment. We need to know this.

Environment: Is it on the aquifer? Is it in a flood zone? Will it create run-off into the river?Are we looking at sprawl? Is it uniformly single-family homes?

  • Not on the aquifer. Not in a flood zone. 
  • A teeny bit of sprawl, insofar as Blanco Vista is already isolated and sprawly. But it’s not making Blanco Vista any more sprawling. It shouldn’t require much in the way of utility extensions.
  • Apartment complexes are pretty environmentally friendly, because they’re efficient.

Social: Is it meaningfully mixed income? Is it near existing SMCISD schools and amenities?

  • Not meaningfully mixed income. That’s my biggest gripe about big apartment complexes – it’s not good for a community to be economically segregated.
  • On the schools: Blanco Vista got a special carve out to be part of Hays CISD instead of SMCISD, even though they live in San Marcos. This kind of chafes, for a few reasons. First, because people disparage SMCISD for racist and/or classist reasons, and so Blanco Vista deserves a bit of side-eye for wriggling themselves out of district. (And whoever was on city council back then, too.)

    Second, SMCISD is always weirdly close to getting forced to send money back to the state under the Robin Hood law, which is supposed to even out rich school districts and poor school districts throughout Texas. I’m not totally clear on the details, but it’s something like SMCISD needs families to balance out the university/outlet malls/non-family parts of San Marcos. So SMCISD particularly gets screwed when neighborhoods like Blanco Vista and Whisper Tract are in San Marcos but not in SMCISD.

    That die is already cast, though. This particular apartment complex is in Hays CISD.

The San Marxist Special: Is it a mixed-income blend of single family houses, four-plexes, and eight-plexes, all mixed together? With schools, shops, restaurants, and public community space sprinkled throughout?

  • Nope, not that at all.

So is this good or bad? It’s mixed.  More affordable housing is good. General Commercial would have been good as well, except developers seem to be too timid to build the retail that people need to have near their homes.

…

Item 17: I listened to this when it came through P&Z on October 11th.  This one is fascinating.

The 2015 floods destroyed a lot of homes.  Three years later, 12 of those families were awarded CBDG grants to build new houses.  Of those, 9 families are now in new homes. The CBDG program either built new homes for them on new lots somewhere in San Marcos, or they owned the land and had their old homes torn down and built new ones, raised above the flood plain.

We’re down to the last three families. They are still in the houses that were flooded, all trailer homes. The homes are becoming quite dangerous – a kid fell through the rotten floor, two of the couples are aging and there are damaged stairs, there’s mold, and on and on.  A family of six has no heat in the winter. And so on. They are still trapped in a nightmare that’s been going on for seven years.

These three families don’t own their land, and it’s in the floodway, so they have to be moved to new lots.  The city has a few lots available, but they’re not ideal – over by Texas State, away from schools/family/community, etc. 

So along comes this lot, in Sunset Acres, down the street from Mendez Elementary, where an old firestation used to be.  It’s large enough to be redeveloped into three houses.  It seems ideal.

However! At the P&Z meeting, about a dozen members of the neighborhood showed up.  They are dealing with horrendous conditions on their street.  Basically, raw sewage is frequently backing up into their bathrooms and up through their drains.  It sounds like a nightmare.  And several of them have regular flooding, as well.  This has been going on for years and years.

They weren’t opposed to the houses being built eventually, but they absolutely did not want anything increasing the quantity of waste in those pipes until the sewage problems were fixed.

The city staff explained the plan to fix the sewage: TxDot is putting a larger sewage pipe under I-35, which should be done by 2025. Then the city will start the Sunset Acres drainage and wastewater project in this neighborhood. It’s a two phase project.  Fingers crossed, everything will be done by 2029!

P&Z members basically gawked at City Staff and said, “Why have you handed us this utter shit sandwich?!” 

 It seemed like such a disaster – these three families are so desperate, and these other people are desperate in different ways, and we’re supposed to put the first group in with the second?!   No. P&Z denied the zoning change 6-2.

So now it goes to Council.  I am pretty impressed by the city staff. They got smacked down hard at P&Z, and they got to work.  First they had a bunch of meetings with the neighborhood and with all the different engineers and utility workers, and they sent little cameras down pipes and tried to figure out what to do.  

They came up with a medium-term plan and a short-term plan to supplement the long-term plan.

Medium-term: they’re going to replace one of the worst sagging, splitting pipes running down Broadway.  

Short-term: They’re going to massively enlarge a detention pond, to help with the flooding. For the sewer, they’re going to add an access point to the sewage line where it gets clogged, and they’re committing to cleaning it out on a regular basis. This should go a long way to keep the pipes flowing and prevent sewage from backing up into homes. (The new houses can be built with back-flow preventors, but the city can’t pay for those to be installed in existing private houses.)

Why haven’t we already been cleaning the pipes regularly? It depends what kind answer you want. Over the past decades and generations, we haven’t been doing these things due to negligence and systemic inequity. More recently, we haven’t been doing it due to a shoestring budget. We’re not doing tons of things throughout the city that we could, if we had more money.

Everyone on City Council was both impressed and appropriately cautious with this potential solution. Sunset Acres residents are so burnt out on being ignored by the city that they are not exactly celebrating yet. A lot hinges on how well the city implements the short and medium-term solutions.

Still, I don’t want to gloss over the tremendous amount of effort that the city staff went to, to make this a win-win-win situation. It would be great to remedy the raw sewage backflow and house these three families and restore everyone’s faith in the power of a group of citizens raising a fuss.

Hours 4:00-5:08, 11/1/22

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Item 19: The Pick-a-Pet problem

This is a first reading, meaning nothing sticks until the final vote next time. 

First we get a quick background on the shelter, and their efforts to move towards no-kill, or at least less-kill. Listen: it’s always a big problem when the presentation is not provided to the public. It leads to me squinting and trying to figure out what the hell is going on in a graph like this:

Wow! Over the past eight blurry marks on the x-axis, we’ve improved six blurry marks on the y-axis! What a nice upward trend that is.   (Elsewhere they said that we’re currently at 92% live outcomes.)

So now we get to the proposed changes. Let’s take the main ones one at a time.

  1. The second time an animal has been in the shelter, they have to get spayed or neutered. So if you got your dog from the shelter, and they escape and get picked up, you’d be on the hook.

Gleason proposes changing this to the third time. Your pet gets out and gets picked up one time? Fine, but the next time, you’ll have to handle their spay/neutering.

The Vote:
Yes: Mark Gleason, Jane Hughson, Jude Prather, Max Baker, Saul Gonzalez
No: Alyssa Garza

2. Stray-holds for cats: how long should they hold your cat when they pick it up?

This conversation is incredibly confusing. I actually listened to this part twice, and then I went to the actual ordinance and I’m still confused.

First, this is only about cats. Cats do much worse at shelters – it stresses them out, and they’re susceptible to illness and disease. The old rule is that all cats get held for 5 days. After that, your cat can get adopted out or euthanized.

Based on the presentation: the new proposal is to break out different cases:
– Kittens under 3 months old are basically always from feral litters. Kittens don’t escape from homes when they’re that little. So the first proposal is no stray-hold for little baby kittens. They can just be adopted out. (Everyone is fine with this.)

– The next category is cats with traceable identification. Is there a tag, or a microchip? Can we get in touch with the owner? If so, we’ll hold the cat for five days, or three days after reaching out to the owner.

It sounded like this category includes any cat that appears to have an owner – does it have out-dated microchip? Has it been spayed or neutered? But I couldn’t tell for sure.

– The third category is cats without traceable identification, who are healthy. These cats would get spayed and neutered and returned to wherever they got picked up. That way, a healthy outdoor cat does not languish in a shelter. This is Trap/Neuter/Return, or TNR. (Here’s a link I found explaining TNR more thoroughly. It sounds good.)

This third category is the contentious category. Should we hang on to cats without identification for five days?

Based on what’s in the ordinance:

– That third category, cats without traceable identification, are called Community Cats. Feral cat colonies are fine. You’re allowed to feed and love your colony of community cats. Hopefully they’re gradually picked up and spayed and neutered, and any that are injured or sick need to be tended to, and kittens should be removed for adoption.

It does not talk about TNR at all. The presentation did a little, but I don’t see it in the ordinance. What the ordinance says is that visually healthy cats should not get picked up in the first place.

So what happens if your cat gets picked up, despite that? The presentation certainly made it sound like it could happen!

According to the section on Impoundment, cats with no traceable identification will not be held for 5 days. So what happens to them? It doesn’t say! It does not say that we’re implementing TNR and will return them.

What happens to the other cats, the ones with ID? If you don’t pick up your cat, there’s a few options:
– it gets put up for adoption,
– transferred to a different rescue organization,
– fostered out
– euthanized
Nowhere does it say that your cat may be returned to where they found it.

Furthermore, here’s another problem: what happens when the line between community cats and pets gets blurry? Is your cat getting returned to where they found it, or adopted out/euthanized?

Mark and Alyssa are very concerned with a situation where someone is trying to slowly tame a stray cat, and has been putting food out for them, and befriending them, but hasn’t yet been able to catch the cat and take it to the vet for a check-up. If that cat gets picked up by the shelter, what happens?

Mark wants a 5 day hold for this pet, and it sounds like he believes that otherwise the cat will be immediately put up for adoption or euthanized. He never refers to TNR or returning the cat.

Alyssa also wants a 5 day hold. She did acknowledge that the speaker said the cats would be returned, but she was still troubled by this. So she is not on board with TNR. (I’m not sure why. Why would it be better for the cat to sit in a shelter for five days, over being returned to their familiar habitat?)

Here is my opinion: TNR is good, but the ordinance is very poorly written on this point. It should say explicitly which cats will get returned to where they’re picked up, which cats will be held for five days, and what happens to those cats at the end of the five days. TNR should be clearly stated in the Community Cat section, Impounded animals, and Disposition of animals. Right now, it’s written as though it will always be perfectly clear which cats are community cats and which cats are pets, and that bright line does not exist.

3. Finally we get to the big item: pet stores shall not sell cats and dogs unless they come from a shelter.  San Antonio has this ordinance, New Braunfels just passed this. It’s a thing that’s going around. 

The idea is that the USDA is supposed to visit breeders, and check for humane violations, but they’re massively underfunded and show up maybe once every few years.  Under the ordinance, you would still be able to buy a pure bred dog, but you have to buy directly from the breeder.  Apparently the American Kennel Club explicitly says that members shouldn’t sell their dogs to pet stores.

I cannot tell you how horrified Gleason is by this.  He starts at 4:31. 

  • He doesn’t think this will affect puppy mills.  It’s futile.
  • We’re trying to close down Pick-a-pet.
  • We’re trying to outlaw pure bred dogs.
  • We’re shutting down all breeders!!
  • When he was in High School, he saved his pennies and purchased a beloved pet for bird-hunting. You can’t believe how much he loved this dog.  His uncle has a sheep dog … for herding sheep!!
  • People should be allowed to buy a dog from a store!
  • Pet stores won’t have a functional business model.

He’s open to compromise: he wants a rule that pet stores can’t buy from any puppy mill with any infraction from the USDA.   Jude Prather is also on board with this.

It’s pretty easy to pick apart Gleason’s arguments, and mostly this occurred.  

  • Breeders can still sell pure bred dogs.
  • Buy your bird-dog and sheep-herder from the breeder. No one is stopping you.
  • PetSmart and other pet stores seem to do just fine selling supplies and not actual pure bred dogs and cats.
  • I believe you loved your dog, Mark. No one doesn’t believe you.

This was the most entertaining moment to me: Remember how the USDA may only get around to inspecting a puppy mill once every five years?

In response, Mark says, “If we don’t know anything about them, then they could be GOOD! We don’t know! Maybe they’re GOOD!”

Yes. Maybe they’re full of warm snuggles and blankies and rawhide bones. Those mean old activists just hate the snuggly love of a good puppy.  You figured it out, Mark.

I don’t want to come down too hard on Mark. I think he was very emotional, and channeling his emotions through nonsensical arguments. I think in his heart of hearts, he believes:

  • Puppy mills aren’t that big a problem
  • This is about outlawing pure bred dogs, and he loves pure bred dogs.

He’s wrong, though, and he cannot take in information to the contrary.

The vote: Do you want to stop pet stores sourcing puppies from puppy mills?
Yes: Alyssa Garza, Max Baker, Jane Hughson, Saul Gonzalez
No: Mark Gleason, Jude Prather.

There’s one last vote: delaying this part of the ordinance for a year, so that Pick-a-Pet has a chance to convert its business model.  That passes 6-0.

Again, all this has to be finalized at the next meeting. First readings are not the final story.

Hour 4, 2/1/22

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Here was the big puppy mill conversation. Spoiler: it was anti-climactic.

First, Shane Scott moved to deny, right out of the gate. If I were making Council Bingo, one square would be “Shane Scott moves to postpone or deny a good ordinance.” He did not get a second, so that died.

Once they were discussing the issue: it was very frustrating to listen to.

  • “We could be sued by Pick-a-pet!” (Shane Scott)
  • “Pick-a-pet creates jobs!” (Also Shane Scott)
  • “Pick-a-pet tried to collaborate with our animal shelter, who refused to talk to them. AND many people say our animal shelter is the Gestapo!” (Also Shane Scott, and yes he literally said “Gestapo”.)

Rebuttals:

  • “Our animal shelter was very nice to me when I adopted my cat.” (Mayor Hughson)
  • On the topic of partnering with the animal shelter, city staffer Greg Carr kind of made a mess of this answer. First he said that Pick-a-Pet would cherry-pick the best, most adoptable animals, and leave the shelter with the difficult pets.

    Jane Hughson basically said, “Huh? Come again?” and Carr backpedaled and conceded that the shelter would be happy to collaborate with Pick-a-Pet.

Then there was Mark Gleason. Oh Mark. In the Council Bingo, your square is “Mark Says ‘Verbiage’.”

  • Why don’t we add in that pet stores can source from any licensed breeder? Just that one word – licensed – would solve all my concerns!
  • What about the mom & pop breeders? This bill would mean that they could get in trouble!

The problem with Gleason is that both of these arguments are manifestly terrible. I believe he believes them. Fortunately, the rebuttals are made:

  • Puppy mills are all licensed. The USDA criterion for licensing allows for operations with thousands of dogs in cages. Stop it with your license fetish, Mark. (Both Greg Carr and Alyssa Garza make this point.)
  • Mom & pop breeders are breeders, not pet stores. Different legal definitions. (Chase Stapp sort of explains this point. It’s muddled.)

Max Baker was mostly right, but also frustrating. He made the correct points about puppy mills and rescue animals, but can’t resist saying, “There is nothing more bougie that owning a pure bred dog. Put your ego to the side and get a rescue dog. The whole industry should not exist.”

This lets Mark Gleason focus on that, the bourgieness of owning a pure bred. He can then talk about hunting dogs, and why you might want a specific breed for hunting water fowl, or what have you.

Max. You are just throwing red meat to people like Shane Scott and Mark Gleason, who can then clutch their pearls over their fear that you want to outlaw water fowl hunting dogs. (And for the record: it’s okay for pure bred dogs to exist and it’s not unethical to own one. Government should promote adoption of rescues and make it as easy and widespread as possible, but there’s not a strict need to eliminate pure bred dogs, provided they’re raised humanely. )

Finally: Alyssa Garza is the big winner in this discussion. She focused on the underlying issue: puppy mills are atrociously inhumane, and existing licensing allows them to operate. She is clear spoken and focuses on the most-correct argument.

Jane Hughson never did state her position, but suggests that the issue be referred to the newly form Animal Rights Commission, consisting of herself, Alyssa Garza, Shane Scott, and city staff. In the end, that’s what happens. I told you it was anticlimactic.

Hour 4, 12/7/21

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Item 2: Shane Scott had pulled Item 2 from the consent agenda, on an interlocal agreement between the university and city on Edwards Aquifer Habitat Conservation Plan.

Now, I clearly missed some workshop and they did not explain what was going on, so I’m using my context clues here. First Scott proposed postponing the agenda item until December, 2022. How is this not a jerk move? If it walks, talks, and quacks like a jerk move, then I mean…

Anyhow, nobody seconded his motion, and so he changed it to February 2022. At this point they had a meaningful conversation about some fence somewhere and some details, and it sounded like other councilmembers also had questions. So the postponement passed 5-1, with only Baker dissenting.

Item 24: A resolution against anti-semitism and hate crimes.

There really has been a disturbing amount of anti-semitism in these parts lately, as well as the chronic background static of anti-Black and anti-Hispanic racism, in different ways. This resolution is… nice? There’s nothing wrong with it? The councilmembers sort of had the giggles with how enthusiastically they were supporting this measure, which did not help it seem very substantial.

Item 28: Banning the sale of cats and dogs at pet stores.

This item was a discussion item, not a voting item. It sounds like the most promising outcome is to require that private venues source their cats and dogs from animal rescue shelters and humane societies.

Gleason was worried about the mom and pop breeders. That kind of drives me crazy – I suspect mom and pop breeders are quite capable of keeping animals in sadistic living standards. Not universally, but it’s not a group that I want to give a wholesale pass to, either.