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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes Animal Care Advisory Committee - 11/13/2003 �ninuv cars�c.,e eny of �� corpus = Chnsti City of orpus Christi MINUTES CITY ANIMAL CONTROL ADVISORY COMMITTEE Corpus Christi-Nueces County Public Health District Administration Conference Room, 1702 Horne Road November 13, 2003 Members Presence Chris Cooper, Sherry Dunlap, Cheryl Martinez, Sharon Massaud, Kendal Keyes, Susan Thiem and Dr. Alan Garret Members Absent: None Staff Present: Dr. Michael Silvers Guests: Mr. Sam Crawling Call to Order: Chris Cooper, Chairperson, 12:35pm 1. Approval-of Oct r 9. 2003 The Minutes of October 91 was approved with an amendment. Amendment The under"passage of ordinances"the minutes should reflect that the initiating comment was from Ms. Massaud. With the inclusion of the amendment, Ms. Martinez made a motion to approve the minutes. All present were in favor, none opposed.The minutes were approved. 2. Bard Business Passage of Ordinance Ms. Thiem discussed ordinance revisions. She advised the Committee to address the issues and vote, or pass them on to a sub-committee. Much discussion occurred with no resolution. It was concluded that without the presence of legal council, Elizabeth Hundley, no final decision could be made. Breeders Permits Breeder permit vs. Kennel permits This topic was discussed and debated among the Committee. No action or motion was put forth. r i Director's Report No director's report was given. Dr. Silver's introduced himself to the Committee. He encouraged the Committee to continue to move towards a completion to the ordinance revision, so that they could be made available to Council and the public for further consideration. Manager's Report No manager's report due to Cherrie's absence. Public Comment Mr. Crowley asked if the committee would revisit the State's stance on Home Quarantine under certain conditions.The committee agreed to entertain this request. Ms. Barbara Beynon asked if the committee would consider the option of 3-year rabies vaccine. She presented many ideas and recommendations to the committee for consideration. Adjournment A motion was made to adjourn. 1:32pm. Animal Control Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes Page 2 of 2 Are there any corrections? . Susan Theim, I thought we were not ready to vote. No that's not it. Can we vote if Elizabeth isn't here?As long as we have a quorum we can vote, it doesn't matter if the attorney's here or Cherrie's here is that correct? Right, but where we were at last time, is because Cherrie wasn't here and there was also issues that she had questions that she had answered, that was my understanding as to why everybody wasn't ready to vote. When we opened the meeting we were told we could not vote. Who told?It came from that side of the table, I guess from you, your chairperson. Is it true or not? Is it true, do we have to have legal counsel sitting here if we vote on something? We're just an advisory committee. And she's usually not here anyway. We're discussing, so it's kind of, I would want Elizabeth answering that question wouldn't you? I can only, you ask me the question, the chair runs the meetings. I don't really, I didn't realize we didn't vote because they were not here; I thought we didn't vote because we weren't ready to vote. Read it, it says so,"it was concluded without the presence of legal counsel that no final decision would be made", and so we couldn't vote. And that's what we were told when we had the meeting, and if I'd had my car I wouldn't have been here.That was the one-day my car was in the shop and I had to wait for Jim to pick me up. It doesn't make any sense for us to sit here if we know we're not going to conduct any business. Today we vote, we don't vote? If we have a quorum we vote. Okay, that answers my question. This meeting regardless. Okay. Now are we back to the approval of the minutes? Do we have no corrections to the minutes? No. Do we have a motion to accept the minutes? Sherry Dunlap makes the motion to accept, with Kendal second the motion. Sherry D, I also have a question? Of the approval of the minutes? The past minutes, it has nothing to do with the minutes. It has nothing to do with any of this. On the issue, it came up, it was talked about forever at the last meeting, and Barbara had a comment, brought it up about the 1 year rabies verses the 3 year rabies and this committee was also given a letter recommending that we go with the 3 year rabies, and considering that it's a 3 year rabies vaccination. Why wasn't it allowed for this committee to even, discuss this issue, decide this issue. Why was it decided without us because my understanding of the way we were supposed to do things? It wasn't supposed to be handled the way it's been handled. Cherrie and Dr. Brewster talked to the veterinarians'and they decided that it was to stay 1-year vaccination. And it was never brought before us, we've never been allowed to, we discussed with Barbara at the last meeting. My understanding it has to be approved by this advisory committee before it goes to council, before it's put into the ordinances. ST says that's not true. We are just advisory committee, we bring things, and oh Jorge would probably know more about that. It's already in the ordinances as 1-year. So the issue the committee would have is whether or not there was a recommendation that we would go to a 3- year vaccination, and going from memory, based on, the meeting it did attend, it was occurred to them to see if there was going to be community support or the 3-year and there was opposition from the veterinarians for the 3-year. There was discussion, but I don't believe we, any final action was made on going from the 1-year to the 3-year. There is a significant fiscal impact to Animal Control if we do a 3-year. Animal Control doesn't make much money, and licensing is probably the primary source of income that the Animal Control Division receives and a loss of that would, quite ??? Could have a very significant affect on how much money they have to operate. From my understanding it was only like $85k that collects from the rabies, 1/3 of the city. So how would that affect the Animal Control? Because it's the primary source of income for the Animal Control Division, so a loss of that would, I mean you would have to look at reducing Animal Control by a comparable amount. Or council and ask them to raise taxes for the other source. I didn't realize the money from the rabies vaccinations went to Animal Control. It goes to the city and part of the resources that are considered beyond the general monies of the cities, the division the departments generate. But is it the rabies or the city license? Well the rabies is what triggers the license. Am I correct? And you know much more about this than I do, I don't know, we were not discussing about changing the annual licensing, were we? Barbara replies, yes when I asked the committee to consider would be some means, when an owner has the approval of their veterinarian to go to a 3-year license and a 3-year vaccination and a 3-year license. And I said whether that would be honoring a vaccination certificate for 3 years and doing an annual licensing, or buying a one 3-year license, either way.That's what I was asking the committee to consider? My question only to address the rabies, triggered by the license. Can we get back? Okay do we have an answer to that question? Is it still up to discussion for this committee for the rabies to go to 3-year verses the 1-year?Yes. And it would be included in our chapter b ordinance ???, so it is this number. So that's still something we can make a note on? What about this report? Now is this something pending from the Health Department? This report that we would send options for rabies vaccination of dogs and cats in Texas. It has a lot of really great information but I don't know if this is just meant to inform us or if this is actually some decision we need to make regarding this? That was sent by Cherrie, and it's unclear, it appears that they're taking comments on it but it was just last year when they recognized the 3-year vaccine but concurrently left it up to the local jurisdictions to determine whether they were going to adopt a, keep a 1- year requirement, or change it to a 3-year requirement because they were allowing the 3-year vaccine in Texas. So it was unclear whether their going to try and go back from this and take any comments against that or not. I can't answer that. I've had a lot of people in the community tell me that they would like to see this committee go to the, vote for the 3-year. That there would be more participation. Or even 2 years, with a bi- annual vaccine would be, if we wanted to be a little more conservative. I think we, personally would might have a better participation if it were in a 3-year. But I know I've received a lot of information encouraging us to do that, and I would be in favor of that, if everybody would like to discuss that. Even a 3-year and a yearly registration, which you still. So how much of a ???With that? ???, Cut your revenue by a third. From the rabies only. Which triggers the license. The reason it triggers the license, these people, when we send our reminders to come in and get there rabies shot we sell city tags right their on the s of to people. So they come and get their city tags and their set. Now if they don't want to get it they either have to mail it in to the city. I'm not sure how long the turn around time is. I assume they will send it in, most people once they're there, okay give it to me right there. I'm not going to go down to the city; I'm not going to go downtown to the courthouse. But your annual vaccine boosters can trigger your city license. It's easily transferred without it. It could be, I'm not sure how many veterinarians ???, push a button. Not all participate too. I know that's true. And the other thing is you would be adding tremendous administrative worker to start recognizing ways of identifying license. Right now they're all triggered by the???. When you're looking at the system right now, it's in shambles right now. I'm ???, who G„ took over there but it's getting more efficient.ThaYs good, replies Kendall. I forgot the young ladies name, but the black lady. Mercy Jaji. She's doing a good job, Dr G. Cherrie replies she's doing a fantastic job. She had a headache for a long time, and then we left the year behind her. You can't imagine how, thousands and thousands of uncollected fees. She's done a really good job, I'm really impressed,and in the short time she's been there. The committee's free to do what they feel is appropriate but It's my understanding that when they put the idea of the 3-year to the vet organization that's in Nueces County, that it did not receive any support from the vet's. No it was a split decision. If you take an item that doesn't have people behind it, it will not in likelihood pass the council approval. Cherrie states, may I make a recommendation? If management could meet with Coastal Bend TVMA again, possibly bring in someone from TDH, one of the veterinarians. To talk to the veterinarians so that we could probably get more consensus among the vet's. And hear some of the scientific data that is out there that may not have been present before that we have now that could relieve from the scientific perspective, talk to the veterinarians and talk to community members present, that we could make an educated. Dr G, Coastal Bend Vet Association won't be meeting till, there's a Christmas party tonight so they won't be meeting till January. Now I can go to the meeting and ask people how they feel,just get a cursory ???. Cherrie, yes, I think I could twist some arms from TDH to come and speak to the Vet's. Jorge,Then you still need to address the revenue issue. The loss of revenue. Cherrie, We wouldn't know until we tried it but I'm not sure how it's affected other animal control agencies but we would still have the yearly. I'm sorry I apologize for missing the first 1/2 of the discussion, but to continue to have the yearly tags. I don't think there would be a reason to have a tri annual tag just yearly. Unless when you get your rabies, you buy a 3-year city tag.That's what's out there of course, if their dog gets not neutered and gets neutered they'll want their money back.Theyll say wait a minute I got my dog neutered; can I get my money back from the city? In a heartbeat, people file those $3, $7 every year. Do we need to make a motion to do what you suggested? Why don't you just table and ???on the desk. Cherrie had an answer, but we don't have an answer. But that's something we can look into, like you said then we can pass this ordinance, they can be built up to. EH, We should determine the financial and administrative impact and include that in writing, so that we all know what we're really going to do. At the present there's no way to identify renewals without the vet. Recorded the ??? approval of absences. C, We have not had any absences from the past so I guess you could make a motion to pass. EH, excuse me do you know that nobody was absent at the last meeting? C states, no one was absent at the last meeting that's correct. J, One last thing to keep in mind on this city tag, its color-coded. So anytime during the 3-year period somebody gets a tag, animal control looks at the color-coding. If it's green this year, then red next year. You could have people overlapping, like if its a red tag this year, its good for 3 years. And in 2 years it'll still be red. Then if somebody gets tagged in 2 years, there tag will run out before the color-coding changes also. C states, Sometime you have overlapping anyhow because someone will buy a tag in November and its good till November of the next year. SD, Are we going to the 3-year or are we staying with the 1-year? J, going to the 3 on the city tag trying to color code, because right now it's color-coded. Ever year you get a new color. So an animal control office sees a dog on the street whatever, sees the tag and knows its current or may not be current. I can see the logistics problem. Again like were saying, because of administrative paperwork that could be ???very difficult to deal with. CC, Do we have a motion to accept the absences? Sharon D, makes the motion and Kendall seconds the motion for accepting the absences. EH, Does anybody need a draft? We have one for September; we need a more current one. K, should changes have already been made on this draft? Eh, instead of going back and changing like we have been going for months and months we're just going to pencil in our changes. To recap we deleted the dual registration tag system, so we're going to stay with the current tag system. We deleted micro chipping references. We tabled the breeder definition; breeder permit and the committee voted that all free roaming cats were to be spayed or neutered, male or female by January 1, 2005. So if everybody's in agreement? Also the euthanize, the committee had voted that they wanted to put a motion forward to amend the budget, so that 80 % of the funds raised in Animal Control stay in Animal Control. There was a discussion that breeder could be expanded to include hobby breeder.To somehow include hobby breeders, that was tabled. The discussion about micro chipping, the committee-tabled discussion regarding tattoos if that would be at least an affirmative defense, if the animal wasn't wearing a tag. And I think that's where we are. J, Who is the ???. Well it's not in the draft because it isn't, as you know something you do by law. You don't put it in to the ordinance by law since it's subject to appropriation each year.The committee, I can find it in the minutes from the previous notes where they wanted to put a motion to council but 80%of the funds raised by Animal Control remained in Animal Control and 20 % went to the general fund, and that's where we are. J, I understand the intent to the, to gamer as much monies for the Animal Control division as possible. The city works extremely hard to prohibit any kind of restrictions on what the council can and cannot not do??? lawful ??? City receipts. And I will tell you here that it was not the ??? recommendation to ??? committee, to provide any restriction on funding allocation, thus removing that ability to the city council. City council has that vested right; their status and we always work against any restrictions of allocations of funds. Why there's a charge to the health department, is the health department doesn't do it's accounting, doesn't do it's audit, doesn't provide the legal service, doesn't provide the administration in all areas. So the formula that is used has about an 80—20 split. Sometimes it rises, sometimes it falls. Don't want to mislead you all, it would be our strong position that that recommendation not be accepted by???. ST, then let's not waste any time on it. K, once again the only thing remaining was the breeder. SM, I move that we take breeder and breeder permit out of the city ordinance code. K, the definition of breeder? The definition, we only put definition in because we have breeder permit in there at$200. I suggest you take out the breeder permit and the definition, ???. Are you suggesting or are you making a motion? I'm making a motion. Is there a second to this motion?I guess not. Motion fails. CC, second to motion. K, can I ask a question. Breeder was just newly added right? Jorge responds, right. The definition of breeder was just newly added. EH, We put that in there because the comment was in there. We're going to take the permit out because there was no reason to have a definition in there. Kendall seconds the motion. K, I know you did ry fie„ caution us on removing ordinances that are in their, its true that breeder permits serves no purpose of that of definition. I would second that. CC, All in favor. All in favor except SD and Dr G. Dr G, I wish we could come to a happy compromise; everybody seems so black and white on this that you can't seem to come to a happy medium. Which is a shame unfortunately. We need to finish a vote on the motion for the minutes. So we've got the second on the motion for the vote, 3 to 3. The motion fails, breeders stays in, definition stays in, now you have to work on the definition and tabling the discussion, want W pick up from there or do you want to start fresh on how to reword it. SD, wants W make a motion to accept your definition of breeder. EH replies, as it is present. SD, as you wrote it. K, and that's from ???. It's right on the front, breeder definition. K,Then what about the fine, is that something? Yes that's what youll get fired up to???. Jorge, I think you design the two letters per year to the, with those that actually don't have a letter, correct. EH, on the committee's recommendation. The committee came up with that definition? EH, I put forth that first definition and you guys have fine-tuned it since then. SD, I Sherry Dunlap have a motion to accept the definition as legal has presented to council (for definition of breeder). CC, do we have a second to the motion? I guess not. EH, motion fails. I think he's deleting his definition. Dr G, Is the definition you want right here?Yes, replies EH. Dr. Garrett seconds the motion. CC, All in favor of the motion? 3 to 2 in favor vote. She has stepped out.We have to clarify whether thaYs an ??? s. if she's abstaining, if it's abstention to the vote. K, She might be screaming in the ladies room. I have an odd question, I have clients that breed their dogs and just give them away. They just like to see their children have puppies. They give away to friends and relatives. As long as we read this real closely. K, but that's why we added that in. We have to finish this up and she's not here, so what does that mean. She called the question, she called the vote, and so we need to vote.What are we voting on? She's left the meeting and it's 3—2. Then the motion carries. EH, Whether tattooing would be allowed as a affirmative defense to a failure to wear a tag if in fact that is a charge of the violation. K, Didn't we take care of that already? We did that last month. K, I'd say we just agree that we weren't going to go there right now. Okay. EH, I had the flu last month so all I have. K, do you have the notes from last month. Chenie, no motions were made last month.The second motion was Sherry was ???To the motion. Jorge, to accept breeder in the way Elizabeth legally. Legally it's in the thing. K, in this discussion will it come before the vote or after the vote. ST, Before, but we have already voted. You voted against, ST, I voted against? Well no she just left the meeting. Whatever, she wasn't voting ???. Dr G, okay if they just breed one time they're considered a breeder?Jorge, Yes, if they breed one time, their considered a breeder. Yes but if you breed a cat and a dog you're a breeder. A cat and a dog and you pay$200 ???. Jorge, 2 times in a two-year period. ST, I know we can't discuss this anymore because it has ???.That's the reason I have no problem with ???. K, and I've took notes and distinctly remember us having a conversation to add the word"donated"in there just so we could catch those people. Somehow it didn't get put in typing. Do you need to check your notes to make sure,Jorge replies? The discussion I remember brought up by Cheryl Martinez was the act of whether or not a non-profit giving away an animal would be excluded from the breeder definition. The nations are excluded because they don't fit within the activity that would make the lack of a permit, a violation. In layman's terms yes you could still donate, it doesn't bar that so long as, we don't seli, purchase, barter or exchange. What you guys were trying to get to, to allow them to give away an animal. K, to breed them and give them away. EH, to breed and to give them away to a friend or relative. J,That was over time. EH, yes it does. ???We have that donated, and everybody is, yes definitely let's do it. Can you repeat that please? Yes, when Dr Garrett came in he said that people come in and that they keep having babies and that they just give them away. It should be donated. It could pass in a New York flash. Donated should have been added to that. EH. The people that breed their animal more than 2 times in a 2-year period and donate the animals would be included, breeders. He's the one who brought it up and you all voted and put it in there. These are my last notes in October that breeder, the rest of that was all tabled. EH, and we talked about enforcement. Yes. Okay, we're back to the tattooing? Yes. K, we finished that up last month. EH, but we don't have that it in the minutes so. Unless the committee all in agreement as to what the decision was, and who made the motion and what the vote was, I'm without any direction. Jorge, if it's not in the minutes they should vote. Is there a motion to? SD, I really think that the tattooing and micro chipping is. Sharon's? Jorge, didn't you make the motion. Cherrie, that was the vote the month before last, I wasn't here last month. Jorge, it wasn't last month. EH, In October what the motion was, was to take the micro- chipping language out and the committee tabled the discussion on,"the motion to retain the wording as is, without micro chip was put for by Ms. Martinez, this was voted on 5 toi in favor. So the micro chipping would not be because you discussed the technology not being available here. It would not be a defense to wearing the tag. The discussion went to then what about tattoos? The humane society uses a tattoo. If for whatever reason that animal and I think there was some additional discussion about show animals frequently have tattoos. If the dog didn't have, he's required to wear a tag. He didn't have the tag on, but he had a tattoo, that would be an affirmative defense to the defense of the violation of having not worn the tag. Okay, so what do we want to do about the tattooing? Jorge, what we're trying to get to be that this is a legal equivalent to the city tag. Is that what we're trying to reach with the tattoo? Because that's what we're trying to get with the microchip, is that the equivalent to the city license right? EH, it wouldn't negate the requirement to have a license. What the committee would be saying, what the city would be accepting is that animal control goes out, your animal doesn't have a tag, they have the discretion the right to impound or write the citation. They write the citation for failure to wear that tag. Somebody comes back and goes, but my animal is tattooed, look here's his tattoo. That's about affirmative defense to criminal charge of not having complied with the ordinance of wearing a tag. If you're on private property, if you're on your own property do they have to have a collar and tattoo or do they have to have their tags on? If their on their own private property street? When un restrained on private property could include a secured substantial fence a dog then in under restraint. On your property with no fence at all, is at large no. Then that animal is required to wear a tag. So on your own property is not the criteria by which to judge the. But the dog's under restraint, but is he still required to wear a tag, yes. But if he's in your own back yard, behind a fence, no. We can't breech the privacy of a fence to find the violation. But if he were tied to the tree out front, yes he would be required to wear the tag. If he's just walking around in the front yard, then he's not under restraint. He would be at large. But I'm wondering when practicing and showing dogs on private property that we have them under restraint if we're going to be under violation because there not going to be tagged. Because we don't have tags on our dogs because we're showing them, even though they have tags. I'm wondering if somebody couldn't come, police ???, turn us in and take our dogs. EH, theoretically yes, the dog's required to wear a tag at all times, attached to a collar. Is code enforcement going to enforce it by bright line rules that we're not going to recognize that at a show dogs don't wear collars and tags? If you want to write that in there, nope, as an exception to the requirement of wearing a tag and a collar then well do that. K, says here that micro chipping and tattooing were also voted down, go to 13 on page 3. EH, this is where we would allow tattooing discussion, was allow tattooing in lieu of, yes but it was not the affirmative defense. Dr G, Bottom line is, let's just get to the bottom line here. The tags ???, revenue from the city, ???. Identification is to secure, review that this is my dog, proof of ownership. It's a personal thing. If we don't want the tattooing, if it's not going to serve its purpose, then we don't need it. Dr. G, can I make a motion that tattooing, micro chipping, cloves of garlic hanging from a neck, anything is not having an affirmative ???of having a city tag. City means,just give me your$3 or 10. ???, but you don't want to put it that way. Dr G, no you don't but???. Sherry Dunlap seconds the motion. All in favor. Before the discussion goes any further the vote must conclude. SM abstains from the vote. Jorge, do the minutes reflect what the motion is? Are you able to, because you were going to clarify, weren't you going to clarify what the motion was. CC, the motion was to not include tattooing or micro chipping into the ordinance. Cherrie, as an affirmative action to not wearing a city tag, EH replies an affirmative defense. That's it. Cherrie. They would probably want to see that because I had asked that we reconstruct, ??? not to display but the aesthetic display to make it easier for people to understand, including like putting the definitions at the start of the section. Which is done currently but this is old. It was written a long time ago, people find it very cumbersome and the community allowed me to at least put a draft forward in a format that is more people friendly. So they probably want to see the last one in January. ST, What did you say are we voting today, are we getting this off the table or are we still waiting till January? Cherrie replies, it's off the table; it's up to approve the final draft. EH, that's just basically the display, the layout. Because we found commercial permits that our committee had, when we started the permits were varied, it was hard to find things, where did you see it in the ordinance? There's no directors report, do we go to the manager's report? Cherrie. We're still on our, the second phase of our neighborhood edition of program which is M. Right now we're doing the 14" St. / Morgan area and like I've mentioned before it's a great successful program that's where the city comes in, Solid Waste, different programs that are working with this particular area, and they actually have different areas that well be going thru throughout the year. So this is something we're working with, and with this we're also doing more sweeps. We're updating our website on a monthly basis, that informs the citizens, those who do have access to web based information so that they're aware of the areas that we're going to be hitting for sweeps, This is one of the areas that we're currently doing sweeps. With the Neighborhood m f Initiative Program one of the things that we're going to be working with is Veterinary Community. We'd really like to start instituting again, rabies clinics. So Ill be getting with Dr. Garrett to see if we can get with Coastal Bend TPMA to help support us with rabies clinics when we start to move thru these areas with the Neighborhood Initiative Program. Because we're hitting a lot of below income areas so I think this is a great opportunity for us to get out there. You've got citizens coming up to you telling you all their problems and sometimes you're a little amazed at some of the things that bother them. One of the areas we hit, I thought it was going to be really stray roaming dogs, people were just really more upset that their neighbors were walking their dogs on a leash thru their yard and letting them go to the bathroom. It's just a great opportunity to get out, to meet the citizens of those particular areas. But well be getting with Coastal Bend thru Dr. Garrett so we can start working on those rabies clinics. We have currently 4 positions open with Animal Care Services. We've got one that's going to be a new hire for Kennel, so we should be finish with all of our hiring I hope by the end of December. We should be fully staffed going into the New Year. We are getting into some great individuals. We're starting to see what we really want to give the citizens and there are people that really want to be in these professions, we're really excited about that, so with cooperation of Human Resources we should have a full staff by]an 04. All these positions are opened till filled, so if you know anyone who's interested in Kennel positions or AC01's or ACO2%. As of right now the date for us to be in the new facility is Feb—04. Also from 12/8/03 to 1/8/04 we will not be picking up traps. Dr. Silver's replied that he thought this was indefinite? Cherrie replies that it is limited. EH mentions the subject of eliminating the loan of traps. Cherrie asks, does the committee support this, replied with a yes. Public Comments Mr. Crowley asked if the committee would revisit the State's stance on Home Quarantine under certain conditions. Barbara) commented, the last time when I was here at the meeting I understood the committee to say, it was just not possible to do the 3 year rabies vaccination and licensing for a variety of reasons. I went back and read this and research on my own, I left Dr Silvers a letter, and I copied Cherrie on it. And this is a summary of the data that I presented to them. The first thing I heard was we have a high rate of incidents of rabies in Nueces County. Well back here towards the back, I have, I went and pulled data off of the TDH Website, rates of incidents, excuse me,just the numbers for rabies in Nueces, San Patricio, Kleberg, and Jim Wells Counties. We live in Nueces; the other three surrounds us. These numbers are straight off of the web site. The rate of incidence at the bottom of each county I calculated by the way I've been taught to do it thru my health committee's and pure bread dogs, is number of positive's divided by the total population of that species times 100 %. You will notice that Nueces County, we've had 9 rabid bats, now 10 because there was one last week in the news earlier this week out on Staples. But from January 1 of 1998 thru September 30, 2003 we've had 9 rabid bats. That's all the species we have. All the rabies we've had, all of the rabies was in bats. And when you do all the stat we came out with a 1.3 rate of incidents with rabies. Now all these words on the front 3 pages, I realize there are limitations to the data. But these are the only data that we can all work with. So there are things in here you can go to look at. But I would like to point out we have an incredibly low rate of incidents of rabies in Nueces County. When you go thru, I also added counties like Bear, which is San Antonio. Travis, which is Austin. Harris County, which is Houston and then all counties in Texas, the statewide totals and on the very last page, these are just the rates of incidents for the various species by county and then the statewide total. Again they show a 41%of rabies in Stumps throughout the whole state. That number can't be right for the random population of Stumps and I realize that. But what I want you all to see, and if you flip back to the actual state totals, you're going to see some incredible numbers. They have stats on there with maps that shows where these locations are. And a lot of the rabies is up from Austin, San Angelo, and a big swamp across N.Texas into E.Texas. There's very little rabies down in this area of Texas and I think we can be very happy that we have that aerial vaccination program. Cherrie got the letter and she's done some more research, because she's talked to the State Vet about things like, what types of rabies are we seeing in S. Texas. Is it the dog variety strain, all that stuff, I'm not a medical person. But I would like to point out we have an incredibly low rate of incidents in Nueces County of rabies. And to go to a 3 year program, your talking about taking a dog or cat that is at least 4 months of age, it gets it's first shot. A year later it gets a second shot. If it gets a W annual vaccine at that point it's good for 3 years. That's my understanding of the rule. ??? page here, this is a quote from the state vet, and you will know this is not me this is an expert and she says. "That complete non compliance is issue separate and apart from vaccination intervals, compliant pet owners vaccinate their pets non complied owners ???. ??? Immunity, that thing that we worry about with all the animals out there, are they protected or not? Is not enhanced by increasing the number of vaccinations in the same animal. I can't say it any better than that. So I do think there are reasons,talked to Dr. Rasco, whom I do believe is the outgoing President unless he's staying in for, to be President of the Veterinary Medical Association for next year. He told me they did have a meeting, that they did have a pretty contentious discussion over this issue of wanting 3 year vaccinations and that it was a split vote but the beginners won. So Cherrie talking with the TDH folks and they all speaks the same language Dr Garrett speaks with veterinary medicine I think that's a good thing, maybe we can get the vet's on our side. I think, like Sherry says,"the animal owners in Corpus I think will want it if they know it's there. Yes there's issue goes with rates of incidents of rabies in Texas, in Nueces County is vaccination and licensing and like I say I don't understand why we even have 2/3 of the license whittling away if you either allow do an annual licensing and allow the city to recognize that 3 year license rabies certificate or if you sell a 3 year license for 3 times the annual price. There's no drop in revenue and put it in the language if you spay or neuter your animal, you know you won't get your money back. It would people to spay and neuter a little earlier. Because that is a problem, but I think that if Cherrie and the city continue to look into this I think this is going to be a big thing.There's been a lot of changes out there, a lot of people are still kind of opposed to it, but like I said that's my opinion and I did some research and I just thought I'd bring it to your attention because if I still feel this strongly III take it to council and they'll be asking more questions about this, thank the board. f Dr G, I won't comment on what she said, there's a reason for her numbers but she probably doesn't understand it.