Cranbury cat owners: want your cats licensed?

[Jay T.]

I just returned from the TC budget meeting. A lot of issues were discussed. Win has done a good job challenging the spending and Win, Pari and David who were present today overall did look to limit spending.

In terms of the cat license issue it is important for people to attend the BOH meeting to voice an opinion against the cat license.

Even if the BOH does decide to do this against public opinion, it is important to note that the town won't be doing a census. With dogs there is a state law that mandates the census be conducted. However, with cats there is no such law and it appears that the BOH cannot dictate that the town conduct a census of the animals. They can mandate the law, but not the census aspect.

[Guest]

BOARD OF HEALTH MEETING NOTICE


The February meeting will be held on Monday, February 2, 2009, at 7:00 pm in the Town Hall Gourgand Gallery.


February 2, 2009
AGENDA


CALL TO ORDER

OPEN PUBLIC MEETINGS ACT

ROLL CALL

MINUTES

January 5, 2009

SANITARIAN’S REPORT

December 2008

HEALTH OFFICER’S REPORT

December 2008

OLD BUSINESS

Cat Licensing – Review of State Model Ordinance

AED Equipment in Public Places/AED Training

NEW BUSINESS

PUBLIC COMMENT

ANY OTHER BUSINESS THAT COMES BEFORE THE COMMITTEE

ADJOURNMENT



**Persons with disabilities requiring assistance, please contact Town Hall 24 hours in advance (609) 395-0900.



Kristen H. Hamilton, Secretary

Board of Health

[Jersey Dad]

Turn out was very light for the discussion about cat licensing.

I expressed concerns about the effectiveness of an ordinance vs. an education and awareness effort. I asked if the BOH would share data about the effectiveness of similar ordinances in other communities. I also suggested Cranbury might be a good community to use as a case study on the effectiveness education and voluntary vaccination.

That said, the BOH Members seem to be well-meaning people who support licensing for a variety of reasons. Those who oppose cat licensing may want to make their opinions known before it is too late.

[Guest]

My impression is that BOH had the mind set on making the cat license a reality long ago. Most (if not all) of their invited speakers (or "experts") are all for cat licensing. This creates an illusion of support for such an idea and reinforces their intention.

[Cranbury Conservative]

Thank you for the update JD.

[Guest]

JD, I have the same impression.

This adds further to public apathy toward local governance. If this is a "done deal", then don't waste residents' time by inviting input that is inevitably dismissed.

[Guest]

I had the same feeling at the budget meeting and TC meetings. I believe and personally feel the TC (aside from Win) has an agenda and relationships they want to keep intact. They are looking for ways to say they are saving while also providing for new fees ie cat licensing or fees for leaf collection. My guess is that they will come up with a way to show and say they are concerned in order to try and win the upcoming election. For example, they want to pay 10,000 to study whether it would be okay home such as a ranch should be torn down and replaced with a McMansion in developments throughout town. One resident at the meeting offered a potential free way of doing this, yet seemed to be dismissed in favor of allocating 10,000 for the town planner. One resident asked when the town attorney was last bid and was told 2001. When he asked why we allocate over 100,000 without bidding the contract for 7 years he was told every reason under the sun. Including that the town attorney does not do every service so some of the money goes to other firms who have expertise such as taxes. At another budget meeting they mentioned charging for leaf collection, yet the PW employee's are paid through taxes and we already paid off the leaf collection. All this would amount to is an additional tax, not a savings.

[Guest]

I meant to say we already paid off the leaf collection machine which cost us 30K.

[Guest]

[crabbury liberal]

Is it too early to start talking about who we can support to join Win on the council next year? In many respects this will be a much harder and more important election as there will likely be incumbents running and it has the potential to shift the balance of power in the TC (not so much for Rep versus Dem as the Stout-Pari-Stannard coalition versus the possibility of them getting one of their hand-picked allies to replace Tom and get the 4 person super-majority they tried to get with Ritter so they could approve spending bonds without voter consent). I suspect a lot of the current nonsense they are wasting time is a reflection of them biding their time since they have been at least temporarily thwarted in their spending agenda for issues like the new stand-alone library. But I’m sure they’re already looking ahead toward the next election and planning now.

Given all that, I think it is imperative that we need to encourage a couple strong candidates, from any party or even independents like Tom, to commit to the race reasonably soon.

Hopefully Tom can be one of them though I had previously heard he didn’t plan to seek re-election. Is Cranbury Conservative considering a run?

[Guest]

I am not supportive of Tom. While I appreciate his turning independent he still approved the waste and spending during the past budget processes. I commend him for taking an ethical stand. However, there is still a poor fiscal history and he was one of the people who supported the revaluation, who approved the past budgets and voted for David as mayor all those years.

Pari is probably running and I hear Mr. Ritter may run again as well. Though he has not attended the budget meetings so that could be conjecture. I thought he represented himself well last election.

On the Republican side, I have heard a couple of names mentioned. Both of whom would be solid. But, I am not in a position to comment as that is really conjecture on my part.

[old timer?]

It will be great if an old timer can run for the TC.

[Guest]

Both of the potential Republican candidates I mentioned have long term ties. One grew up in Cranbury and has long term family ties. The other also has long term ties. However, as I said have not spoken to one and the other informed me a month ago about the potential ticket. So things may have changed.

[Guest]

[Jersey Dad]

[Guest]

How many cat registration fees does it take to cover the lawyers fees involved in bringing this ordinance forward? We might have to start registering cats from hightstown just to break even.