One person in the room knew it, ASAC Subcommittee Chair for the Community Cat Ordinance, Sandra Villareal. Villareal told the Standard Times in August 2013:
"You also really need to get them spayed and neutered, so there are a lot of responsibilities that will come with colony caregivers. If they're willing to do it and the city will allow it...(and) as long as there are no complaints, they can continue caring for the cats and things will be more specifically to feral cats."
The draft of an ordinance will need approval from the Animal Shelter Services Board and the City's legal department before being presented to City Council. "It's a lengthy process, so it's not going to be in the next month or so," Villareal said.
The subcommittee had well known community cat hater and ASAC member Linda Marcelli on it for "balance" purposes. Morgan's boss Bob Salas made the presentation to City Council in February 2015.
The ASAC Community Cat subcommittee crafted the ordinance, based on researching other cities' community cat ordinances. Consider what the Standard Times wrote in October 2014 as that work progressed:
Cats: They’re on rooftops, in the trees, in the bushes and running wild on the streets of San Angelo. Are they “community” or “feral” cats?
That was one question the city’s Animal Shelter Advisory Committee raised at its meeting Thursday. The ordinance proposal, which was revised by assistant city attorney Maxwell Branham with the guidance of the group’s subcommittee, to regulate cat colonies changed the verbiage from “feral” to “community.”
That revised ordinance was tabled until the next meeting because it was not made available to committee members until minutes before they convened.
The newspaper noted three groups involved in the proposed ordinance, the ASAC, city attorney and the ASAC subcommittee. That is largely the appropriate city channel for decision making.
Consider some of the people who supported the ordinance before City Council.
A respected local veterinarian and university President encouraged City Council to approve the ordinance. Council passed it unanimously.
Why would ASAC member, committee liaison and Shelter Director Morgan Chegwidden give a distorted view of the creation of the city's community cat ordinance? Why would Sandra Villareal not share the true process with the current Animal Shelter Advisory Committee?
These are several of many questions that arose after viewing the video of yesterday's ASAC meeting. There were multiple inaccuracies, which frankly is sad. It reminds me of former Shelter Director James Flores lying to the ASAC via his fraudulent community cat survey. There's an agenda and time will reveal the city's and its exclusive partner Concho Valley PAWS' intentions.
Update 6-19-21: It appears Morgan's boss Bob Salas sat in the audience while she distorted the history of the Community Cat ordinance. Bob put up with James Flores bullying and lying. As Sandra and Bob went along with Morgan's misrepresentations I can only view this as official city position.
Update 8-20-21: City Council approved $5,000 for the Animal Shelter to continue its "House-Eventually Spay/Neuter-Return" program for "nuisance" community cats. Over two months ago Mayor Gunter wanted a strong community relations effort to support these funds. There is no sign of that to date.
Update 3-14-22: San Angelo's ASAC failed to meet its quorum requirement three times, thus the June 2021 minutes reflecting this agenda item await approval in the next meeting scheduled for May 19, 2022.
Update 6-2-22: Consider city leadership's painting "nuisance" cat collections as registered colonies. This e-mail is from Shelter Chief Morgan Chegwidden.
I think it’s splitting hairs to distinguish (1) spontaneously occurring cats not dependent on a human for a source of food and (2) registered colonies.
I understand the ordinance has a specific definition but we’re observing any where that cats congregate – I’d call that a colony. A colony can simply mean a group of one or more community cats.
It's not hair splitting. There are two drastically different responses. Cat colony managers are responsible for the health and safety of their community cats. The City is supposed to contact the sponsoring organization for any issues. Critter Shack would then contact to colony caregiver and they would work to address problems. The city is free to deal with nuisance cat collections in the vast real estate not covered by colony managers.
Animal Shelter leadership's ignoring this basic split is concerning but it follows a longstanding pattern of city staff/leadership viewing animal ordinances as the red tape way.
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