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You can lead a Florida county commissioner to water…

By Christie Keith

January 28, 2008

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I’m back! I am telling myself you missed me terribly, so don’t disillusion me. I was in Los Angeles at the Xena: Warrior Princess convention, and yes, I was working, but also yes, I’d have gone anyway. I am just that geeky.

I was digging through a pile of email that reaches to the virtual ceiling. I go through my email backwards, which can be confusing, but it does mean that while I haven’t read my Google alerts from last week, I did read one that bounced in a few minutes ago.

Seems Florida’s Palm Beach County is considering a mandatory spay/neuter law, and some kind constituent sent each of the county commissioners, the ones who’ll be voting on the issue, a copy of Nathan Winograd’s “Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No Kill Revolution in America” to assist them in making this decision that will impact the lives of dogs, cats, and people in their county.

Now it seems that one of the commissioners, Burt Aaronson, has no plans to read the book, saying, “If people want me to read something, they could have enclosed a letter: ‘We’d like you to read this, we’re giving it to you as a gift.’”

Wow, commissioner, you’re a tough guy to do a favor for. It wasn’t enough that this constituent purchased the book and sent it to you, you wanted them to schmooze you up, too?

The rest of the story’s here.

And hey, did you miss my lame headlines? Or just me in general?

Filed under: animals: pets,Books,news,No Kill — Christie Keith @ 5:20 pm

19 Comments »

  1. On the other side of the country … I gave a copy to MY county commish … and she thanked me and voted against forced spay-neuter.

    Comment by Gina Spadafori — January 28, 2008 @ 5:32 pm

  2. Hah! I knew you missed me!

    Comment by Christie Keith — January 28, 2008 @ 5:38 pm

  3. That goes for the L.A. City Public Safety Committee too. And I know at leasrt some of them have gotten the book.

    Apparently the county’s nearly 300% budget increase under MSN and it’s total failure to save animal lives (surprise surprise) has not dissuaded them at all. Ed’s estimate for implementing the law looks to be of by at least a factor of 10 I’d say. They are still buying Ed “you don’t have to count them as euthanasia if you let them die in the shelter or turn them away at the door” Bok’s and Judie Mancuso’s rantings that this will make pets somehow “healthy and safe” and somehow also be fiscally responsible.

    LOS ANGELES (CBS) ― Most dogs and cats in the city of Los Angeles would have to be spayed or neutered by four months of age under a proposal approved Monday by a City Council committee.

    The proposed ordinance is intended to reduce the number of animals in the city’s shelters and decrease the rate of euthanasia, which costs the city about $2 million a year.

    “This ordinance gives us the tool to end the insanity and do something significantly different,” said Ed Boks, general manager of the Department of Animal Services.

    “This law would help to end the cycle of frustration we all face and feel everyday and allow us to eventually reallocate precious resources for increasing adoption, educating the public on humane issues and fighting animal cruelty.”

    The proposed law, which was approved by the Public Safety Committee and will be before the council on Friday, would require pet owners to spay or neuter their dogs and cats by four months of age.

    Boks estimated that it will cost $380,000 to $400,000 to implement the ordinance.

    Here is a link for this story:

    http://cbs2.com/local/Euthanas.....39682.html

    Edited by Christie to include link

    Comment by JenniferJ — January 28, 2008 @ 5:50 pm

  4. Thanks for finding the link!

    Hopefully some of the other City Council Persons have taken the time to read the book or done some research. But I have so little faith in elected officials currently that it is hard to be optimistic.

    Which reminds me, I need to mail in my ballot. Hope springs eternal.

    Comment by JenniferJ — January 28, 2008 @ 6:28 pm

  5. Regarding Burt Aaronson, who has no plans to read the book: Did he think it was sent to him just for fun? I mean, how idiotic is he? Face it, it’s just his utterly lame excuse not to read it and become enlightened. Anyone detect some bias there?

    Comment by Lynn — January 28, 2008 @ 8:44 pm

  6. Burt Aaronson must have a government e-mail address — post it here and let’s send him some nice letters asking him to read the book! ;-)

    Comment by Dorene — January 28, 2008 @ 9:17 pm

  7. BAARONSO@co.palm-beach.fl.us

    Comment by Christie Keith — January 28, 2008 @ 9:41 pm

  8. Well isn’t he the precious little flower. Either that or too dumb to work out how the book topic relates to his work?

    Comment by emily — January 29, 2008 @ 7:35 am

  9. I’m the one that sent Burt his book. I sent an email ahead of time to let him know it was coming.
    since i have been trying to contact him for three years to talk about the dysfuction in the county and how we can save dogs lives I am pretty sure he deletes my emails before reading them.
    God help us all-we could actually have a county that is progressive.
    remember the election and the chads. translate that into our pets.

    Comment by Cyndi Lenz — January 29, 2008 @ 8:37 am

  10. Proud to say that Cyndi is my cousin. :))

    Comment by nancy — January 29, 2008 @ 9:00 am

  11. Thanks, Christie (yes, I missed you! :-D) — I sent Burt a nice e-mail that was actually free of snark — snark is the special perogitive of those who live in this guy’s district! ;-D

    Comment by Dorene — January 29, 2008 @ 9:31 am

  12. I have to go to work and will write more later.
    We have commissioner named Bob Kanjian who has taken the time to actually learn the issues. He has spent over 100 hours doresereach and listening.
    Just so YOU understand what we asking for: we are asking for an INDEPENDENT task force of experts. We would to bring Nathan here but cannot unless out commissioners want him. we want an independent audit of animal control and independent recommendations so we can be an example.
    this is our shelter director using emotional blackmail the oldest trick in the book and if don’t want what she wants we can leave.
    http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/mplayer/m/57029

    Comment by Cyndi Lenz — January 29, 2008 @ 9:42 am

  13. Hey, Cyndi? You rock.

    Someone bought a hundred copies of this book from my Amazon store — I don’t know who, but I assume it was for this purpose, to send to lawmakers.

    The least they could do, I guess, is READ THE DAMN THING.

    Even the first chapter. Anything.

    I’m a dreamer, aren’t I?

    Comment by Christie Keith — January 29, 2008 @ 11:50 am

  14. Reading could lead to thinking which could lead to action. And we all know that action takes work and we wouldn’t want to impose that on our elected officials, would we?

    Comment by 2CatMom — January 29, 2008 @ 2:01 pm

  15. you are guys are great. This is a long time coming. Think of our shelter director as the Katherine Harris of shelter directors-this is all about ego for her and her personal agenda. like i said we have great dysfunction in our county and it wasn’t until i read nathans book did i understand. I thought it was just us down here. Sp please feel free to email Commissioner Burt and tell him to just read the first fifty pages. One could do that in a few days in the bathroom if they do not want to take time out from the schedule.
    we have a wonderful group opposing this ordinance made up of rescue, hobby breeders, veterinarians and pet owners and wonderful cat people-all people that love their pets and understand the issues and are willing to help. so we have this shelter director who wants to a martyr. She cherry picked every mean and nasty thing she could do. She told half truths and when we pointed those out they commissioners (except for one ) got mad that we were picking on their staff. This woman has no business running a shelter-she rescued seagulls. This is no way to pull a community together. It is divisive, punitive, sexist and racists.
    so feel free to email burt-maybe he’ll read the the first 50 pages
    thanks you guys and thanks nancy. life gets really incredible sometimes

    Comment by Cyndi Lenz — January 29, 2008 @ 2:15 pm

  16. I’m away from home and my Winograd book, so I can’t carry out my own suggestion:

    Get Winograd’s permission to scan and create a pdf file of pages 189-204 to sent to your illlustrious flower - er, Burt. Go to the publishing website http://www.almadenbooks.com and contact them requesting permission to send these pages to the head of animal control in your area.

    My thought is that maybe, just maybe, the flower might read 15 short pages and [dare I hope?] want to read the rest of the book.

    Yes, it’s a long shot…..

    Cyndi, you’re the greatest. Don’t get discouraged. Great things happen when you least expect it.

    PS: Alternate plan: buy the flower a R/T ticket to Long Island so he can visit North Shore Animal League. Surely the people there will be delighted to give him the tour.

    Comment by Lynn — January 30, 2008 @ 8:51 am

  17. you guys are great. all this guys does is make himself look stupid.
    I have total confidence that this miserable ordinance will get passed -

    Comment by Cyndi Lenz — January 31, 2008 @ 4:48 pm

  18. You don’t need permission to copy an excerpt of the book to give to one person. That’s considered a “fair use.”

    Comment by Christie Keith — January 31, 2008 @ 8:18 pm

  19. Wow! What ever happened to it being the pet owners right to choose?

    Comment by PAWS N CLAWZ — February 28, 2008 @ 7:02 pm

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