Sonoma Animal Control to Confiscate / Euthanize cats... Deadline - Thursday Sep 20.

Disabled/hospice cats need our help right here in Sonoma County. Please email the supervisors and share with friends.

Sonoma County Animal Care and Control (ACC) inspected the property of Lynn Styles, director of "TaraSun Rescue and Refuge" in early March. The ACC officer found the care Lynn provides ...
to be excellent, without exception, but said Lynn was over the "four cat limit" allowed by the County, and she would have to reduce her number to four.

TaraSun is a 20 year old, nonprofit "sanctuary" for ...disabled and older cats, funded by Lynn and her husband John. Lynn, a nurse, provides specialized care for each cat, including hospice care. 95% of the cats are not adoptable and live with Lynn for the rest of their lives.

Lynn has met with her Supervisor Efren Carrillo and with Amy Cooper (director of ACC) and with the chief ACC Officer Crane, asking for an exception or variance. Their response: We must enforce the law. Period.

These cats are scheduled to be removed on Thursday, 9.20.12. Those who are not adoptable will be killed. Essentially, ACC will use scarce taxpayer resources to remove cats who are receiving excellent care (at no taxpayer expense) and kill them. There is no reason whatsoever this "four cat limit" should be applied to rescues/shelters/sanctuaries unless there is a finding of abuse, neglect or public nuisance (none the case with Lynn).

DRAFT EMAIL
Please send to supervisors and assistants:
District 1. [email protected] and [email protected]
District 2. [email protected] and [email protected]
District 3. [email protected] and [email protected]
District 4. [email protected] and [email protected]
District 5. [email protected] and [email protected]

Please copy Amy Cooper, Director of Animal Care and Control [email protected]
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Dear Supervisors:

As a constituent / concerned citizen, I strongly urge you to:

1. Halt the ACC action scheduled for 9.20.12 against TaraSun, a nonprofit sanctuary in Sebastopol. Do not use taxpayer money to destroy these disabled and hospice cats who, by the ACC's own determination, are receiving excellent care. Lynn Styles, a nurse and TaraSun director, is giving these animals specialized care, unavailable elsewhere, all at her own expense. ACC's only issue is that TaraSun exceeds the County's four cat limit.

2. Review County ordinances and recognize that nonprofit rescue/shelters/sanctuaries are and should be exempt from ordinance licensure requirements, including the four cat limit.

3. Completely eliminate the four cat limit in Sonoma County (for all residents). It is intrusive, unwarranted and counter-productive, and enforcement of said law is a waste of tax payers money.

4. ACC intervention should be limited to cases where cats are abused, neglected or where there are issues of nuisance.

Thank you,

Pamalah MacNeily

This is reply gotten from Susan Upchurch ( auto-reply)
Hello:

Thank you for your message regarding TaraSun Rescue. Our office has received many e-mails and phone calls regarding our Animal Care and Control Department and their efforts to enforce a County Ordinance regarding limitations on the number of animals kept at residential properties.

TaraSun rescue was first notified that their operation was not in compliance with land use regulations over 6 months ago following a citizen complaint about conditions at the rescue. ACC staff worked with the rescue operator and gave repeated extensions of time to the shelter applicant, including the most recent and final extension of 90 days. Our office has worked with another humane organization, who attempted to assist TaraSun in placing some cats at their rescue in an attempt to reduce their number - which does exceed those allowed by our County ordinance. A local attorney also offered pro bono legal assistance to the shelter operator. Though assistance was offered, the operator did not accept assistance and asked that no one from the County contact her prior to the end of the 90 day extension granted to her.

I have received confirmation from ACC today that the operator of the rescue may be subject to civil sanctions under the ordinance if the cat population has not been reduced at the end of the 90 day period. At the current time, these sanctions will not involve seizure of the animals at the facility, but may involve a financial penalty if the facility has not been brought into compliance as required by current law. Further actions may result if additional complaints are received about the facility.

The County of Sonoma is committed to policy revision of ordinances involving pets, which have not been reviewed in the last decade. As part of the current work plan for the department, the standards relating to animal rescue groups - as a compliment to our animal shelter goals of finding good homes for adoptable animals - will be factored when we look at applicable ordinances as they apply to land use guidelines and rescue work.

Thank you for your concern for animal welfare, and your advocacy for a reasonable resolution to this situation.

Best regards,

Susan Upchurch
District Director for
Supervisor Efren Carrillo
Fifth District Representative
County of Sonoma
575 Administration Drive Room 100a
Santa Rosa, CA 95403

phone: 707-565-2241
fax: 707-565-3778
e-mail: Susan.Upchurch@Sonoma-County.org

I am greatly relieved to hear that none of these beautiful animals will be slaughtered. Lynn is my closest neighbor and friend and we've worked together many times to help the homeless animals in Sonoma County. She has always given of herself to any animal ( or human ) in need and runs a first rate sanctuary.

It was a member of my online rescue group that turned her in, and because this was an open group at the time, and because this awful event happened at the exact same time as my own harassment began, I always thought that there was a connection. Add to that the complete disappearance of the perpetrator and you can understand my suspicion. The woman who turned Lynn in also adopted a little orange cat. Lynn wanted to get the cat back, thinking that it was in danger, and found that the woman had given completely false contact information.

Another animal rescue friend experienced a dramatic event also at the same time when her car window was smashed and her laptop was stolen. And the group as a whole experienced continual disruptive computer threats ... personal email accounts hacked, a very personal message from one of our members posted on the group website, etc.

All a matter of record ....

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Posted in reply to the post by Dian Hardy:

I sent my letter to the BOS/ACC early yesterday morning and received the same post in response from Susan Upchurch. To me, the positive portions of the letter are the following:

"I have received confirmation from ACC today that the operator of the rescue may be subject to civil sanctions under the ordinance if the cat population has not been reduced at the end of the 90 day period. At the current time, these sanctions will not involve seizure of the animals at the facility, but may involve a financial penalty if the facility has not been brought into compliance as required by current law. Further actions may result if additional complaints are received about the facility."

"The County of Sonoma is committed to policy revision of ordinances involving pets, which have not been reviewed in the last decade. As part of the current work plan for the department, the standards relating to animal rescue groups - as a compliment to our animal shelter goals of finding good homes for adoptable animals - will be factored when we look at applicable ordinances as they apply to land use guidelines and rescue work."
This means we can get together to discuss our own ideas and then present them to the BOS and ACC. Anyone up for this? Please let me know.

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I am glad to be meeting some fellow rescuers. This is my Passion.

Sorry to hear about the issues among rescuers. We have been going through something similar at Lancaster. One crazy, unstable person turning in someone for having too many cats, and spreading malicious lies about them.

It is time for things to change for the better.

Pamalah

Please continue to write/call/email Amy Cooper and Efren Carillo regarding Animal Care and Control's harassment of Lynn Styles. She still has all her animals, has a hearing coming up later on, I forget when. The county needs to change its law limiting people to 4 cats or 4 dogs. The quality of care is more important than the number. No neighbors ever complained about Lynn and her animals, she hasn't taken on more than she can responsibly care for. If you have more than 4 animals, you could be next.

Barrie

Thank you Barrie, Good idea. I believe hearing is early Jan, 2013. The County said they are going to change the rules, so why is Sonoma AC prosecuting Lynn Styles.

Pamalah

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Posted in reply to the post by Barrie:

Please continue to write/call/email Amy Cooper and Efren Carillo regarding Animal Care and Control's harassment of Lynn Styles. She still has all her animals, has a hearing coming up later on, I forget when. The county needs to change its law limiting people to 4 cats or 4 dogs. The quality of care is more important than the number. No neighbors ever complained about Lynn and her animals, she hasn't taken on more than she can responsibly care for. If you have more than 4 animals, you could be next.

Barrie

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One more thing: I saw this post from last year from someone at County saying (my bold/underline)
Interesting::

Hi Everyone, I’m reaching out to all of you in hopes that you can help us. Our kennels and cat rooms are full. We’re doubling and even tripling (if small enough), dogs in kennels. We have adoptable cats waiting in the stray rooms for space to open up so they can be moved to the adoptable rooms.
If you have room for one or 20 please come and get them. If you’re close enough we will even deliver! We currently have 37 dogs and 60 cats up for adoption, with more being made available as I write. All of these animals have been examined by a vet, spayed or neutered, vaccinated, wormed, flea treated, microchipped, and for cats under 6 mos felv tested, 6 mos and older felv/fiv tested. We have another 90 dogs and 40 cats on our stray side that you are welcome to as long as their hold time is up. Most of these have not been s/n, chipped or tested. We vaccinate and worm on intake. You can view all our animals on our website, www.theanimalshelter.org. Thank you in advance! Cathy

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Posted in reply to the post by pamalah:

Thank you Barrie, Good idea. I believe hearing is early Jan, 2013. The County said they are going to change the rules, so why is Sonoma AC prosecuting Lynn Styles.

Pamalah

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I haven't heard that they are changing the rules, but I'm not in on all the proceedings. I hope they do change the rules. If Lynn gets enough support I think they'll drop her case.

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Posted in reply to the post by pamalah:

Thank you Barrie, Good idea. I believe hearing is early Jan, 2013. The County said they are going to change the rules, so why is Sonoma AC prosecuting Lynn Styles.

Pamalah

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Thank you, Barrie, for posting this.

As one of Lynn's neighbors, I can say that there have been absolutely no complaints in this neighborhood about Lynn's sanctuary. She has only helped her neighbors by making sure that all strays in the neighborhood have been spayed and cared for when ill. She is an angel and we do need to make a strong point about her case.

With the never ending problem of stray cats in our county who are out there suffering from starvation, disease, predation, parasites and over-population, I can only hope that the publicity surrounding this case will promote changes in these outdated county laws. I know other animal rescuers who fear AC&C and limit their rescues because of it ...

Please folks, we need all of the "angels" that we can get to help these animals. AC&C can inspect premises and talk to neighbors, but shutting down independent 501 rescue organizations is just wrong ....

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Posted in reply to the post by Barrie:

Please continue to write/call/email Amy Cooper and Efren Carillo regarding Animal Care and Control's harassment of Lynn Styles. She still has all her animals, has a hearing coming up later on, I forget when. The county needs to change its law limiting people to 4 cats or 4 dogs. The quality of care is more important than the number. No neighbors ever complained about Lynn and her animals, she hasn't taken on more than she can responsibly care for. If you have more than 4 animals, you could be next.

Barrie

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Not just shut down. Proscuted. Which is expensive. and Scary. Apparently AC&C has said they will take her cats if she has more than the limit. What will AC&C do with cats that need high amounts of care.

Lynn is an angel.

Pamalah MacNeily

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Posted in reply to the post by arthunter:

Thank you, Barrie, for posting this.

As one of Lynn's neighbors, I can say that there have been absolutely no complaints in this neighborhood about Lynn's sanctuary. She has only helped her neighbors by making sure that all strays in the neighborhood have been spayed and cared for when ill. She is an angel and we do need to make a strong point about her case.

With the never ending problem of stray cats in our county who are out there suffering from starvation, disease, predation, parasites and over-population, I can only hope that the publicity surrounding this case will promote changes in these outdated county laws. I know other animal rescuers who fear AC&C and limit their rescues because of it ...

Please folks, we need all of the "angels" that we can get to help these animals. AC&C can inspect premises and talk to neighbors, but shutting down independent 501 rescue organizations is just wrong ....

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Posted in reply to the post by Dian Hardy:

I'm sorry too, because when I read something like this, I wonder why the discussion so quickly generates into blame of our county municipal shelter. I'm close to forty years in this county and have followed the evolution of shelter care here for most of that time. Do you honestly wonder if shelter workers enjoy killing animals?! Inflammatory language like this fans flames but adds no light. I urge people with concerns to bring them forward to their supervisors and to the director of the shelter, Amy Cooper. If the issue is a better relationship between rescuers/sanctuaries and Animal Care & Control, let's work toward that. Blaming does not aid in establishing a working relationship. Please remember we've got a huge charge here: to assist the companion animals of this county to find homes, first, to test the no-kill philosophy in real time, and to create the environment for an open and respectful discussion between groups far too often unable to connect with each other.

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We need to direct our energy towards writing, emailing, calling our supervisors and Amy Cooper to let them know that we want this law changed to something more intelligent and we want them to drop the charges against Lynn. Barrie