With one eye on a mercilessly ticking clock and one strong hand on a trigger, the normally lumbering City Council pivoted last night with the grace of a 92-pound ballet dancer.
Responding to a breathless cue from Sacramento, Culver City harmoniously joined a fast expanding list of Southern California communities sprinting to a deadline to ban declawing of cats.
Sacramento being the land of frequently inexplicable legislation, the policymakers outdid themselves a few weeks ago. Unmoored and out of nowhere, for no detectable reason, they passed a flukey sounding law that animal activists espied just in time.
The out-of-body state law says that as of Jan. 1, individual California communities no longer will be able to ban declawing of cats. It will be Sacramento’s call.
Could this be because the state capital is where all the cool two-footed cats go to chill out?
While Sacramento is fiscally gagging to death over a record deficit, the legislature — without fanfare — creatively produced this outlier of a law.
The Winners Assert Charges
Activists charge that the practice of declawing cats is barbaric. While it sounds as benign as trimming fingernails, they say, the admittedly painful surgery removes actual joints, not just edges, an act that commonly ignites unusual, often unacceptable, behavior in cats, ultimately destroying their lives.
Only a week ago word of this momentous legislative event dribbled into Culver City.
Arch-activist Dr. Jennifer Conrad (see her nearby letter), veterinarian and founder of the Paw Project (pawproject.org), addressed the Council at last Monday night’s meeting. She declared an emergency to blunt the force of the burgeoning state law.
Dr. Conrad’s people long have been mobilized. They appear to have been traveling across a network of Los Angeles area communities, sounding the urgent cry for city councils to ban declawing of cats before the state gets its claws into the laws.
Since ordinances require multiple readings and cannot be enacted until 30 days after the final reading is approved, the sands of time in Culver City were looking like a miniature beachhead for Billy Barty.
Culver City’s second and final reading —where instant approval is assured — is scheduled for next Monday. The ban would go into effect 30 days hence, Dec. 30, a skinny 24 hours before the state becomes the boss of declawing law instead of cities.
Who Knew?
Nine days ago, the City Council of Culver City did not know declawing from Des Moines.
For a few minutes last night, all of them sounded like mavens, partially because, led by Councilman Mehaul O’Leary, they conducted rigorous, speeded-up research, and because Dr. Conrad’s people flooded them with anti-declawing material, heavy on data.
The emailman was reported to have suffered a broken spine delivering emails to the offices of the five Council members.
It was a given early in the going that Council members Gary Silbiger and Chris Armenta were going to ride this pony across the finish line.
However, every other vote — especially the decisive third one — was in doubt.
Enter the curious Mr. O’Leary.
This afternoon, he is being hailed broadly and loudly as the newest iconic hero of not only animal, but cat, activists.
Once again, the Irishman was destined to be the key vote as he often has been during his maiden season on the dais. He is the first person Mr. Silbiger and Mr. Armenta turn to when they need a crucial third vote.
At some length, in the tradition of centuries of Irish storytellers, Mr. O’Leary spun a hearthside yarn of fairly mammoth proportions regarding his research into the often emotional topic.
He recounted, in pretty intimate detail, telephone calls to his mother back in Ireland. Drama built, like hiking up a steep, winding staircase, as Mr. O’Leary tallied each of his surprise discoveries. He petitioned his mother, who knows Culver City well, to conduct local research of Irish cats and the state of declawing in Ireland.
To condense a several-installment account, Mr. O’Leary this morning explained what won him over to what proved to be the unanimous side.
When veterinarians testified that they usually only declaw cats at the request of owners, “that was the final straw for me,” Mr. O’Leary said. “If veterinarians are basing this cruel surgery on the amateur say-so of people who don’t fully understand the situation, then I strongly support on (virtually all) declawing of cats.”
Sweet and Sour
Cat Night in Council Chambers was ripe with irony for Councilman Silbiger. The Council never has been short of bitterly disputed controversies to wrangle about. Most of them have involved Mr. Silbiger during his 7 1/2 years.
He took pains last night to point out that his colleagues have been known to sneakily transfer his pet issues into a big old trunk and immediately forget the contents. He refreshed their memories by reciting about 10 of them.
Yet this activist gem falls out of the stratosphere, and practically overnight, the Council churns up a hot new law.
Mr. Silbiger could take comfort in the fact he helped lead the charge to pass the law. In the process, he also enjoyed another one of those zero-to-60 moments he is known for, swiftly advancing from little knowledge of a subject to a drum-banging advocate seeking maximum punishment for violators. Mr. Silbiger, a lawyer by day, suggested that a misdemeanor-level penalty was insufficient punishment for a violator of the freshly drawn declawing law. The City Attorney’s office indicated that he was over-reaching.
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