Finance Committee - 09/04/2019 Page 10
That isn’t the case. | have posted on Facebook, | have sent out e-mail messages, many other media groups
are on Facebook, including Southern NH Emergency and Community Services, as well as the Nashua Civic
Sounding Board has debunked this and has said that this is not true, put out all the right ones. Today |
received a phone call, somebody very upset that | was going to hurt, | personally is the way it was put, was
going to hurt their cat. | can assure everybody | am not going to hurt anybody’s kitty. As well as the law that
exists now is not going to change; the amended Ordinance does nothing more than to clarify the current law
that says “impoundment of dogs, cats, ferrets and chickens at large”. “At Large” meaning off premises; we are
supposed to keep all of our animals under control. If they are off premises they should be on some type of
leash, within your arms or in a carrying case, etc.
But cats do get loose, we can’t help it. Cats are prey animals and they are nighttime hunters. So they are
going to try to get out. | strongly suggest anybody who has a cat, a dog, even a ferret, get them chipped.
Humane Society and Shelters have the ability to scan your animal to find the chip and they can unite you much
easier. Many of these chip organizations also have the ability to put in the rabies license so that would be
proof of rabies vaccination. It will save a whole lot of time. So | strongly suggest if you have a cat that gets out
or is out, that you take the time to have them chipped and please make sure that they have their rabies
vaccination. | will be repeating this at the Board of Aldermen meeting but | needed to get this out, thank you
very much for indulging me.
Mayor Donchess
Just to add to that, the mailer was inaccurate in several respects. One, it does not change the City’s Policy or
Procedure with respect to cats. Our Legal Department believes that the City currently has the right to pick up
cats if someone believes that they are sick, for example they have rabies or some other disease or if they
seem to be a stray without a home or something like that. So very few cats are picked up currently; it is
probably handful in the course of a year. There is no intention to change that. But the person who apparently
sent the leaflet contests the City’s ability to pick up cats, even cats that are sick, even cats that have rabies.
So the Board of Health and the Legal Department recommended that we make it absolutely clear that the City
does have that authority which the Legal Department believes we already have. So there is no intention here
to change anything, to start picking up cats, to harm cats or anything like that. The leaflet really
misrepresented the intent and the language of the Ordinance, which if you read it, it is very clear that we are
talking about sick cats or cats that seem to be strays which means cats that seem to have a home, which most
cats you see seem to have a home would not be even covered by the Ordinance.
Alderman Klee
And nuisance cats; | have gotten as many phone calls that | have gotten, that were angry at me, I’ve gotten
some “thank you | want this to go through” and it’s like “it’s already there”. But the nuisance of, sometimes cats
want to see other cats and they see them through the glass and they will tear through somebody’s screen
which can get costly year after year when this is happening. So nuisance cats also.
Mayor Donchess
This would enable the City, which we already have the ability to pick up feral or wild cats, the Health
Department, the Board of Health, Director Wolf-Rosenblum has testified that feral cats can spread disease.
These are wild cats without an owner. So this would make it clear that the City has the authority to pick up a
cat under those circumstances and take it to the shelter, that’s all. So anyway | think we have clarified this,
you have clarified it on-line. | think most people understand it at this point.
Alderman Klee
Hopefully.
