Spay plan compromises

The long and heated debate over a proposed mandatory spay, neuter and microchipping ordinance in Huntington Beach moved toward compromise at this week’s City Council meeting by swapping incentives for requirements.

By the time they finally voted after midnight Tuesday, visibly tired council members said they couldn’t answer all the questions that night. But they came up with a broad set of principles, most of which they unanimously approved. City staff will hammer those guidelines into an ordinance for discussion Dec. 17. The council is expected to set the new costs of dog and cat licenses then as well.

The compromise plan would include both subsidies and new fees. Those who get their cats or dogs spayed or neutered and injected with an identifying microchip would pay less than they do now, but those who don’t would pay more. Unlike now, cats would require a license as well. The money made from the fees would pay for the subsidies and for an education program. The program is expected to cost $50,000 in the first year.

“Cats are a big part of it,” Bohr said before four out of seven council members voted for the cat requirement. “That’s about three quarters of the strays we’re talking about. I don’t want to neuter the whole thing.”

Another addition would require breeders advertising locally to post their business license numbers in classified ads. Bohr said he saw 50 ads for pets on a local classified page, but found only nine registered business licenses for animal breeders in Huntington Beach.

Competition animals such as show dogs won’t be off the hook from extra costs because City Atty. Jennifer McGrath said such an exemption would be a legal headache; it doesn’t line up with county animal control rules, she said. Police, service and guide dogs would, however.

Dozens of opponents and supporters spoke out on the ordinance, some on the earlier mandatory law and some on the new proposal. Some were residents, while activists who had clashed on a statewide mandatory spay and neuter bill spoke as well.

Even without mandates, some opponents said they would be forced to pay for something that wouldn’t decrease the number of strays.

“The purpose of this is to reduce the uncontrolled breeding of dogs and cats in the city, but of those picked up in Huntington Beach, how many were born here?” resident Barbara Brown asked. “Dogs stray because their owners did not confine them properly, not because they’re unaltered.”

Supporting the law is a moral choice, Huntington Beach resident and animal shelter volunteer Steve Crane told the council.

“We have got to quit killing pets,” he said. “My motive is I love animals; I want to have the best treatment for them. I want to go to the animal shelter and have nobody being put down.”

The council members who opposed a mandatory spay and neuter ordinance generally said they found the new approach acceptable. Councilman Don Hansen, who previously said he thought enforcement of mandates would be impossible, said he could likely support a “streamlined” system of fees and incentives that didn’t have to pay the county too much for enforcement.

“Neither side is probably going to be happy with this,” Hansen said. “But this gives people the comfort that if they don’t want to alter their animals they don’t have to alter their animals.”