24/02/2022
A Call to Organize: Palo Alto Animals Shelter Contract is up for renegotiation, and Community Cats Need Your Help!
Dear Cat Caregivers and TNReturn people:
Let's help support Pets In Needs’s request that the City of Palo Alto drop the prohibition on the RETURN part of TNR in the contract for operating the Palo Alto shelter. This is also a great opportunity to get the spay neuter clinic OPEN to the public and to rescuers.
As you may know from media coverage and/or your video attendance at the meeting, we have lots of work to do to convince the City and some of our neighbors that this RETURN prohibition (1) hurts efforts to reduce the population of homeless cats in Palo Alto, and (2) Spay/Neuter/Return programs are more humane and more effective.
(NOTE: please use TNReturn instead of TNRelease to more accurately describe the situation)
Fortunately the NEW management of Pets In Need supports TNReturn and has communicated this to the City of Palo Alto. However comments by Councilmembers indicate that they have been lobbied hard by the Audubon Society and similar anti-cat groups. We need to answer the misinformation shared by these groups with relevant studies and most of all with public support for humane population control for cats.
You may recall that a few years ago Palo Alto planned to close the shelter and outsource all animal services to Silicon Valley Animal Control. Fortunately a public outcry stopped that closure, but the results so far have been disappointing.
Now, with the new City contract and new management at Pets In Need we have an opportunity to make the shelter into the high-quality animal services provider that it should be, including a fully operational spay/neuter clinic. If the residents of Palo Alto have the opportunity to weigh-in we are confident that good science and a humane solution can prevail.
If you can to be part of this effort, please reply by email with answers to these questions:
1) Are you able to commit volunteer hours? If yes, can you describe your general availability, as well as an estimate of hours per week you can help. We know you are all busy with many commitments, so best to be realistic about this.
2) What areas of work interest you, and what particular skills or experience can you offer?
For example, do you have experience with political/ social action movements? Are you good at research and analysis? Crunching numbers? Social media skills? Writing skills that can help with position papers, copy for outreach or letters to the editor? Do you have media training? Grass roots organizing and petitioning skills? (We will especially need those who live in Palo Alto, Los Altos and Los Altos Hills, since we need to reach your neighbors). Any other things you can do that we haven't mentioned?
3) Will you participate in a zoom meeting (or conference call) ASAP to organize for action? What times are you available?
Thank you.
Antonia, Pam, & Ann, in consultation with other coalition members
Email [email protected]
minutes:
https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/files/assets/public/agendas-minutes-reports/agendas-minutes/city-council-agendas-minutes/2022/20220214/20220214amccs.pdf
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aZdKiEDEaU
