We The Pet Owners of Gwinnett: Gwinnett Animal Advisory Council – Making Policies Founded on Fear?
Submitted by TalkGwinnett.com on Monday, 4 May 2009One Comment
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Lilburn dog owner Randy DeCarlo blogs about a recent meeting of the Gwinnett Animal Advisory Council and his group’s efforts to make proposed changes to the county’s animal control ordinance more “pet owner friendly:”
A spirited discussion, shrouded in contemptuous overtones that pervaded for two plus hours, focused on nuisance dog barking and tethering restrictions. From this writer’s perspective, representing “We, the Pet Owners of Gwinnett” a grassroots group of concerned pet owners, the feeling tone set by GAAC is reflective of a common malady: fear of change.
We The Pet Owners of Gwinnett: Gwinnett Animal Advisory Council – Making Policies Founded on Fear?
The problems associated with our new shelter are not just Republican issues, nor are they just Democratic issues, they are not simply pet owner issues nor are they issues that don’t effect those in our community who aren’t pet owners. With a $2.1 MILLION dollar budget misguided animal control issues are a TAXPAYER issue.
I have tried to lay the groundwork with our commissioners that looks forward five years at a continued growth in animal control costs without sound leadership which focuses on preventing and lowering shelter intake numbers as opposed to our current lack of any systematic approach to running our shelter.
Are we prepared to see our animal control and enforcement costs double with population growth in the coming years? Will we quickly outgrow our new state of the art animal shelter and need to budget for a second shelter to handle the influx of pets requiring community impound?
Leadership on these issues starts with the “advisory team” that has failed the county commissioners for years. The Animal Advisory Council is the only one of twenty plus committee’s that doesn’t have any district representation. Instead, the current group, many of which have been long term members all represent various special interest concerns including three of the seven members with links to local breed club interests.
There is no magic bullet in helping displaced pets back into families in our community. We, as a community must simply insist on a fair marketing plan would highlights the benifits of selecting a shelter pet as opposed to purchasing a puppy from a local breeder or pet store.
Citizens who own pets in Gwinnett can join our collective voice of “We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett” by simply emailing GwinnettPetOwner@aol.com . There is no membership fees involved, in fact we accept no money, all that is required is that you either own a pet or are concerned about pet issues in our community and provide an email address and zip code for which we can share updated information. Your zip code will be used to identify which district you reside in.