Council seeks 1-year program for cat control

Apr. 23—Town Council last week directed staff to devise a one-year pilot program with up to $10,000 in funding for nonprofits to control the homeless cat population on private properties in Gilbert.

Parks and Recreation Director Robert Carmon anticipated returning to council with a more detailed program in late summer or early fall.

"Finally, they are listening to what we are saying," Penny Self, head of the Gilbert Feral Cats group, said the day after the council study session. "Last night's meeting was definitely a baby step in the right direction."

Gilbert enacted a ban on feeding stray cats on town properties in 2018, which is a bone of contention for volunteer caretakers who said it hampered their efforts to practice TNR or Trap-Neuter-Return. Police issued a couple of citations and arrested one man over his feeding of strays in a public right-of-way.

TNR is a recognized humane and effective method to reduce the number of feral cats in a community. After the cats are sterilized and vaccinated, caretakers return them to their outdoor homes and continue to feed the colonies until they die out.

Removing the fixed cats would create a vacuum. Unaltered cats would move into a neighborhood and cause problems such as loud yowling, spraying and killing birds.

Carmona at the April 16 study session told the council that the goal of the program is to "make sure that we're managing and reducing the population humanly and effectively along with being able to make sure we're not impacting the areas that we're looking into."

He proposed that the town work with IRS tax-exempted organizations with a track record of implementing TNR, a trained staff and permission from property owners for such activities.

The nonprofits would provide reports to the town "so that we can understand how many cats may have been trapped, neutered, returned — what those populations are looking like" so that the town can better allocate for future years, Carmona said.

Councilwoman Kathy Tilque said she wanted to ensure that the nonprofits the town partners with "have commitment to respond in a timely manner" and that the program has a methodology in place that'll tell if it's successful or not. She added that working with HOAs would be a key component as well.

"We want to make sure that whether it's an individual resident or an HOA that they know exactly who to get in touch with," Tilque said. "And that it will be handled quickly."

That said, Tilque added that she was willing to kickstart the program with $10,000.

Vice Mayor Scott Anderson asked if Carmona knew how many nonprofits would be competing for the funding.

"I think there're a lot of nonprofits providing those services that are very dedicated to it and have trained volunteers," Carmona said. "I know of just four to five off the top of my head that we would reach out to and consider start working with."

He said the town needs to talk to the nonprofits to learn what works best for them and what works best for Gilbert and "find a way to merge both those worlds for the most successful program."

Carmona said his department will take the lead in setting up the program and staff will figure out later which department will oversee it.

Councilman Chuck Bongiovanni was reluctant to commit a dollar amount to the program as there are no data on the stray cat population in Gilbert. Carmona said that the town did not track that.

"In the last year, I've been asking people that are pro-feeding and against feeding to invite me to a feeding," Bongiovanni said. "Let me see exactly what we're looking at. Otherwise we're just throwing numbers in the air — $10,000 may be way too much.

"It may be not enough but we don't know what the problem is because there hasn't been any kind of data to show for it."

Carmona responded that was one of the reasons why staff proposed a one-year pilot program.

"I think part of that agreement with some of the nonprofits who are experts and sort of tracking what those colony numbers may be and being able to provide the reports, it gives us a better idea in some of those areas what those colonies or numbers may look like," Carmona said.

Tilque said that her intent for suggesting a monetary amount was to eliminate the need for staff to come back every month for council's permission for funding.

"That may be too much or too little," she said. "But I think if we could at least agree on an amount to start if it's not enough they could come back part way through the program."

She then asked Carmona if after talking with the nonprofits he will have a better idea how much money is adequate for the program when he brings it back to council.

He responded that the proposed $10,000 was a reasonable number to start out with and that staff will make sure that it is appropriate.

"I was looking at this from a perspective of Parks and Rec not having to run a program," Mayor Brigette Peterson said. "Maybe we do it the way we do with our other nonprofits and have a couple of groups apply to the town.

"So you have a couple of nonprofits apply to the town, we chose those nonprofits to work strictly with Gilbert residents on these issues and then they keep track of all of the TNRs they're seeing, everything that they're seeing throughout the year as part of this pilot program.

"I really want to try and take this out of Parks' hands and not make this a situation where you're having to allocate to individual HOAs or to individual residents or to an individual group."

Carmona responded that the mayor's suggestion was the overall intention and goal of the assistance program.

Although opponents to the feeding ban haven't been successful in getting it repealed, Self was hopeful that the town may eventually allow TNR on its properties.

She pointed out that under the ordinance Carmona has the ability to allow feeding on town properties; although to date he hasn't granted any of the requests to do so by caretakers.

Self is expecting to hear in May if the IRS will give her group a nonprofit status so she can apply for the pilot program.

"Realistically a nonprofit or whoever they chose to go with, Robert can give permission to go in and trap and feed on town property," Self said.

She added that the town through the program may be able to see that this is an issue on town property as well.

"Cats don't know boundary lines," she said.