In last weeks' politically correct Courier article about the City of Savannah moving forward with major improvements to their bare-bones Animal Control Department operations, they note that ‘The issue [animal control service] appears to have been dropped in recent month or at least put on the back burner by the county commission.’
Well, with their slash and burn actions earlier this year, the county commission has done all the damage they can on the issue. The Animal Services Department, as designed by the County Commission, has been in the hands of Mayor Davis, at least since the first of July this year.
Surprise, surprise –– there are no surprises when it comes to Hardin County Animal Services. As it has been over the last 4 years, it has been and is a sham and window-dressing.
For at least the last four years, the county commission has only approved token funds in the budget for 'animal control' in order for the commissioners to be able to tell the citizens that "we have animal control in Hardin County." But, the fact is, not the first penny has been spent over the last 4 years, by the county, to remove a stray or dangerous animals from the community or to operate even a minimal animal control program, let alone a modern one .
While it is true that the county commissioners approved a budget, in June of this year, that doubled last years funding for an animal services department and have purchased a pick-up to haul it around in, the Mayor, under whose office the department is suppose to operate, has taken no action to actually stand up or operate any department or programs.
In fact, Mayor Davis has only given lip service to any progress. The mayor has been quoted in past articles in the Courier as saying that there is progress ‘going on behind the scenes.’ Say what?
First I would point out that ‘behind the scenes’ and an open government, also know as ‘the Sunshine Laws’ can never be balanced in a representative democracy.
But then again the concerned commissioners that I have talked to don’t seem to know what, if any, progress is being made. This ‘progress’ must be way ‘behind the scene’ if even the commissioners themselves don’t know what it is.
Even after the under-handed rejection of the work of the joint task force they called The Hardin County Animal Control Committee, the mayor and some of the commissioners, in their dreams, are still holding out hope that the some concerned citizens and/or the City of Savannah will come to the rescue of the county, again, and maybe even do their job for them and pay for it.
Been there, done that and got slapped down –– I don’t think the folks who put almost a years worth of work in developing an outline for a minimal service program for the county, want any more of that. It’s past time for Mayor Davis and the County Commission to wake up and do their own jobs.
What ever happened to our founding fathers concept of ‘The Lord Helps Them That Helps Themselves?’
The Mayor has not even ran an ad for anyone to work in the department, let alone hired anyone and the county commissioners have not seen fit to addressed the issue at any of their meetings. I suspect that is because when they try to budget the approved funds into an operating budget, the budgeted funds won’t even cover their ‘dog catcher’ version of animal control.
At least one of the commissioners has recently been quoted as saying that, ‘maybe if we don’t do anything’, (as they have done in the past) ‘the problem will go away or the citizens will get tired of fussing about it.’ Dream on commissioner!!
To be fair and balanced, the only real improvement, if you went to call it that, has been in the Sheriff’s Department. Despite having no support from the mayor’s office, in the form an animal control officer, program or facility, the Sheriff has been more receptive to enforcing the at-large statutes, when property damage has occurred, and has actually had his deputies present aggravated animal cruelty cases to the district attorney’s office for prosecution.
Whether the district attorney can actually succeed in prosecuting the cases may well be another story, but the Sheriff’s Department seems to have taken more of the complaints of the citizens seriously and acted upon more of them. Maybe Sheriff Davidson recognizes, as the county’s Chief Law Enforcement Officer, that these are laws on the books and they must be enforced, even if our County Government doesn’t have any rabies/animal control programs.
After four months of this current sham and lip service, let us take the ball back in the court of the citizens, only this time we should not stop demanding that our county government do something positive about a rabies/animal control program until they actually prove to us that they are serious about resolving the problems associated with not having this vital safety and welfare service in place for the benefit of the citizens.
We all know, and so should they, that unless sufficient resources are put into the problem, which must of course must include some kind of shelter, the problem will continue to exist. This sham and window-dressing on the part of the county commission and continued lip service by Mayor Davis must stop and positive progress must be made, sooner rather than later.
It is time for the responsible citizens to get back to work and make it happen this time, for real, with the realization that, based on their past history, our local government is not going to do it themselves in any meaningful way, unless the citizens take some action to put it back on the front burner and turn up the heat to high, again.
Let the phones calls, letters and personal contacts begin, again.
If the mayor and commissioners don’t think that the stray animals problems are a real problem, they should know that a large number of discontented concerned responsible citizens are. In fact, if they like their jobs, these type of folks can become a major problem for their future employment.
To paraphrase our Declaration of Independence - If something is wrong in our government, those that can do something about it, have a duty and responsibility to do it.
The citizens of Hardin County, which include the citizens of Savannah and the other municipalities, can and therefore have a duty and responsibility to do something about the lack of real concern by the mayor and county commission about the animal welfare problems in the county.
Let’s roll! Bring your lunch and plan on staying until the job is done right this time around.
Respectfully submitted for your consideration,
Uncle Ted
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