Oregon Senators:
I am
contacting you in regards to SB6.
I support
the Nays. The incident that led to this bill is unfortunate but, had
the local authorities and the OHS own investigators had acted
prudentially, the animals would have been rescued from their torture
far sooner.
I offer my
own recent (4/2/2013) experience with OHS for my position:
I had a
visit from Officer Austin Wallace. I was reported for animal neglect.
After 25 years working in rescue, 12 years at my current location,
working with no less then 7 veterinarians, 5 vet techs and multiple
other reputable non profits, reducing the feral population by
utilizing FCCO/Spay Day specials over the last 15 years and helping
elderly provide care for their cats, I was reported for animal
abuse/neglect.
I have no idea of the current status of my case. I
have not been notified if I have the Sword of Damacles removed yet.
What Officer Wallace pointed to as neglect was the cats under the
current care for URI with my veterinarians. I provided the name of
the clinic and as of 4/18/2013 my vet, Start Street Clinic, has not
been contacted to verify the cats in my care. I admit, it will take
time for them to find specific cats since I have a second BOOK
at their office containing medical records and care of the current
cats in my humble sanctuary.
I am the
last stop for severely handicapped cats. They come ONLY from
veterinarians (repeated 4 times to Officer Wallace). Any non profit
who requests a position to place a cat with me has to still go
through a veterinarian and the cat has to be documented
handicapped. I have numerous cats that were to be euthanized because
of their handicap BUT the veterinarian felt that the cat had a
good prognosis for a quality of life.
In one instance a vet tech took
the cat after I was contacted and special accommodations were made
for the kitty and he now lives with that vet tech, her family and is
best friends with the family dog. That is the rare case. The common
case is that the cat is euthanized unless I, or another non profit, has
room. At this time I have no room and I made that fact clear to
Officer Wallace (twice).
One fact I
did not disclose to Officer Wallace is that I have 4 cats that came
from OHS via a vet who was instructed to euthanize the cat for
convenience sake. One cat had been taken to 2 other vets who refused
to euthanize a healthy cat. The cat was at the third vet whose vet
tech knew of me. The vet agreed to euthanize the cat and then the vet
tech got the cat to me. He was never ill, he was not a problem, he
was a being euthanized because of a family dispute and pending
divorce.
My
experience with Officer Wallace was one where numerous attempts were
made to intimidate me. My degree is in Behavior Science. I am
familiar with intimidation techniques. Office Wallace used 4 specific
examples in his attempts to cause duress through intimidation and get
a false confession/relinquishment of the cats. This is the problem
with SB.
OHS has
taken the position that they are the law and Senator Courtney has
done the abominable - reacted with emotion disregarding the lack of
action by his own districts law enforcement. This senator should be
out “pink slipping” law enforcement management and officers,
demanding why OHS was not doing their self appointed/self regulated
job and not targeting legitimate non profits.
OHS has a
great record of dominating small non profits. They do not want to
work with us. I started my non profit because of OHS.
They euthanize
the severely handicapped, the not so pretty, the not “looked at”,
the non social or feral cats. I disagree with OHS position regarding
working with small non profits to permanently place cats as do many
other small non profits.
I do not get a $164,575.00 salary (per 2011
financials which is an increase of over 24% from 2010) plus $29931.00
other compensations.
I can not afford 2 others with salaries of over
$100,000.00. I do not know of any small non profit able to chuck out
the money for personal rewards as OHS does.
Which leads
to the licensing and then the random police state we smaller non
profits will be exposed to at the whim of OHS and their personal
police force. Who will also be acting pn their own behalf with no
oversight by any non-judgmental committee. And my taxes also go to
pay for it.
If the
current laws were enforced, if Big Brother OHS was required to
co-operate and extend assistance to smaller non profits doing the
work and care they cannot profit from in both financial gain in
donations as a result of sensational publicity and adoption revenues
(gross revenues $11,231,795.00, adoptions $ 1,490,644.00 per 2011
financials) and education programs were available such as Dr. Kahl is
attempting to establish, we will do far better for the animals then
an emotional backlash by some senator.
I would
suggest, since I work a job at $8.95 per hour and I know of no other
small non profit making any more then $15.00 per hour - if Sharon
Harmon and her 2 other $100,00.00 plus salaried personnel received a
pay cut of 75% and that money went to help Dr. Kahl establish an
educational program to assist pet owners/non profits shelters, we
would not be debating SB6 which will end up in court on legal
grounds under constitutional rights of privacy issues, IRS 501C3
concerns/issues, federal laws regarding policing and numerous
personal liberty rights.
Kathy
Hoxworth
Critter
Folks Rescuing Critters
www.critterfolks.org
Kitty’s
Gone Green!
www.kittysgonegreen.com
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