Last Monday, I was on my way to a City Council meeting when I must have entered a time warp or something.
Instead of Culver City, I ended up in Bizarro World. You remember Bizarro World from the Superman comics. It is where up is down, left is right, bad is good, etc.
I even went to a Bizarro World Council meeting where their Councilmen looked just like the Culver City Councilmen.
But I could tell it wasn’t the Culver City City Council meeting because the B.W. (Bizarro World) Councilmen Weissman and Malkin expressed concern that there wasn’t enough community notification for the item being discussed.
Nothing Satisfies Silbiger
And we all know that even if Mr. Fulwood went house to house, telling residents about an upcoming meeting, Culver City Councilman Silbiger wouldn’t think that was sufficient notification.
But the B.W. Councilman Silbiger felt the two-day notification to a limited audience was ample notification.
And while the BW Councilman Silbiger didn’t feel this item was being rushed through, B.W. Councilman Malkin did believe the item was being rushed.
These were just the opposite positions taken by their Culver City counterparts during the Entrada discussions.
It All Depends
And why the difference?
I guess it is as the old saying goes, “It depends on whose ox is being gored.”
But soon, if your ox is being gored, you can call our local animal control officer.
I went to the Council meeting for an item that was postponed, but I waited to listen to the animal control officer discussion.
I went to the meeting with no opinion about the need for an animal control officer and left before the vote with still no opinion.
How Does This Change Matters?
I listened and understood the complaints about the poor service we are getting from the County.
But I was unconvinced that having our own animal control officer would necessarily improve the service we will get.
I am assuming our animal control officer will be a 40-hour a week position; eight hours a day, five days a week.
If someone has an animal problem while our officer is on his weekend, who will handle the problem?
How Long Can You Wait?
Will it be necessary to wait until he returns to work?
Who will handle a complaint at 6 in the evening? Will the problem need to wait until our animal control officer reports for work in the morning? This sounds like the service we are getting from the County.
And do we have 40 hours of work for an animal control officer to do? Do we have 40 hours of work in five eight-hour blocks for an animal control officer?
What Will His Duties be?
There are no packs of wild dogs running around my neighborhood. I don’t see that many dead animals on our streets. It sounds like the main task of our animal control officer will be tracking down scofflaws in the city who aren’t licensing their dogs.
But this isn’t what the speakers at the meeting were complaining about. This was only discussed in relation to funding the animal control officer for the tasks normally associated with the job.
It seems to me that there may have been a better method for supplying the service the people wanted. Could we have teamed with other neighboring small cities, taking advantages of economies of scale, to supply 24/7 coverage in all of the cities?
The other thing that I didn’t feel was addressed in the final decision was what to do with animals that are picked up by our animal control officer.
Many of the speakers talked about the terrible conditions at the County shelter in Carson. But it appears that with the decision reached last Monday night, our animal control officer will need to take strays picked up in Culver City to the Carson shelter.
Destination I Dunno
There was a lot of talk about looking into finding better places to take the strays.
But looking into something is just that. Talking is not having. Until there is a shelter in Culver City or an acceptable shelter nearby that can be used, the biggest complaint from the speakers that evening remains unsolved. It appears that the decision was not made to solve a problem but to approve a new program before the budget was approved.
And finally, I watched the conclusion of the meeting on television.
There were originally two motions made on the issue. And while they looked different, they were actually the same.
Councilman Armenta made the motion that the City Council approve the plans to hire and fund a full-time animal control officer.
Councilman O’Leary made a substitute motion to conduct a 24-month pilot program with a local animal control officer.
We would employ a full-time animal control officer and evaluate the program after two years. I don’t know what Councilman O’Leary’s experience is with American government programs.
Temporary? Government? Right
In my experience, there is no such thing as a temporary program or a pilot program when talking about government programs.
We are still paying a temporary sales tax increase from a dozen or more years ago.
Government programs are like a boulder on the top of a mountain: Once you get it rolling down the hillside, there is no stopping it.
Or as one speaker put it that night, “Once the camel gets its nose in the tent, you’re not getting it out.”
But of course we will soon be able to call our local animal control officer to remove the camel.
Tom Supple may be contacted at
tomjsup@ca.rr.com
