Am I the only one who has actually read the proposed Inland Valley Humane Society (IVHS) contract???
Why does it cost $10/day to feed a Pomona dog, but only $7/day to feed a Claremont, Chino, Chino Hills, La Verne, or Montclair dog? Same question for cats? Do our stray dogs and cats get better food? Or do the workers get hazard pay......."Oh No! I don't want to feed that cat.....It's a Pomona cat!"
If the proposed increase in dog fees is related to an increase in service calls, then why does IVHS want the dog fees to go up but not the cat fees? According to the data presented, cats account for about 60% of the service calls, are less likely to be adopted, and are picked up by owners less frequently.
Why would you decrease the difference between altered dog fees($10 moving to $35) and unaltered dog fees ($45 moving to $65), if the problem is with unaltered dogs. If we assume it costs $100 to alter your dog, an owner will recover the difference in a little over two years with the current fee schedule. With the proposed fee changes, it will take an owner a little over three years. Here's an idea that I'll get back to.........why not leave the altered fee at $10, but increase the unaltered fee to $80? You'll give people a financial incentive to spay or neuter their animals and they could recover the cost of the surgery in a little over a year.
If cats account for 60% of the service calls and 66% of the euthanasias, are we making any adjustments to the cat license fees? Hmmmm, give me second.............No! So let's look at the payback period for altering your cat. An altered cat license is $5 and unaltered is $10, so if we assume a $100 operation, you wouldn't recover your costs for 20 years!!!!! Can't really blame people for not altering their cats when you look at THAT math.
This one was a shocker.....Pomona has 9000 unaltered licensed dogs but only 5000 altered licensed dogs. Wow! No data on cat licenses.....who wants to make an informed decision anyway.
The city is proposing the increase to generate an additional $305,000. The increase of $25 for an altered dog will generate $125,000. The increase of $20 for an unaltered dog will generate $180,000. Assuming we don't increase the fees for altered dogs, how much will we need to increase the fee on unaltered dogs to generate the $305,000? $34!! By raising the unaltered fee to $80 and keeping the altered fee at $10, the city could generate just as much money. If this leads to more dogs being spayed or neutered then the number of service calls should decrease (saving the city more money).
A couple of closing thoughts:
Why should it cost 3x more money to buy a license for a Pomona dog than Claremont dog?
How many pets are being dumped in Pomona after owners realize they'll be charged for dropping them at the IVHS?
How much would it cost to contract with La County Animal Control? Why aren't those numbers presented?
Why isn't the city staff giving us the animal control data for years other than 2008?
How much does the IVHS pay the city for rent? Yes, the Humane Society is sitting on city-owned land! Do they have a long-term lease?
Would we really need mandatory spaying and neutering if we incentivized the process by charging substantially more for unaltered animals?
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3 comments:
Too bad this issue is last on the agenda. It may be midnight before it gets heard.
Chainsaw Eddie for Council!
I live in a place where animals are dumped frequently. I've witnessed people doing it. All my pets were rescued from the street.
Please spay and neuter your pets. Please don't just dump them in parks and on streets. It's very sad to see how they react. One frightened chow sat in the same spot for 2 weeks waiting for her owner to return. Then she moved into dense bushes and lived there for a year.
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