URGENT: Meeting tonight about animal control ordinance changes

[news-events at uarc.com]

There will be a meeting tonight at 7:00 PM in the Salt Lake City Council meeting room chambers on the 3rd floor of the Salt Lake City County Building (400 S. State St.).

The meeting is being held to solicit comments from the public about some proposed changes to the city ordinance on animals in our homes.  Specifically, the following are currently being proposed:

  * Require licensing of cats (max of 4 per household)
  * Require licensing of ferrets with a limit of two.
  * Limit the total number of animals per household to 4 (2 dogs + 2 cats, 1 dog + 3 cats, etc).

We'd like to call on all of you to attend this meeting if you can (and if you get this email in time), or if you can't attend (or get this email too late), send comments to Council.Comments at slcgov.com.  UARC believes that:

  * We shouldn't place limits on the number of animals a person could care for
  * We should create nuisance laws that stop people from being a nuisance in their communities
  * We should enforce animal welfare laws to prevent the mistreatment of animals
  * We should exempt spayed/neutered animals from licensing costs
  * There should be mandatory spaying/neutering of all domestic cats and dogs (with a few exceptions)
  * We should change the wording of any ordinance to read "animal guardian" rather than "animal owner" as it more accurately reflects our relationship with the animals who live with us.

Please make your voice heard.  Please realize that many of us are in current violation of the laws as they stand (limit of 2 cats and/or 2 dogs per household) - if anything, we need to speak up for fear of the government coming to our homes and fining us for having three or more loving dogs or cats.

Eric Waters
UARC