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LT: Leomana, District—3, 1 just want to say thank you for your presentation. I don't know if I <br /> like cats or not— I have a cat— me and my daughter we adopted a cat - but you know <br /> the cat issues especially here in town— I live in this area and I've seen it my whole life— <br /> the population grow, and so I just wanted to say thank you for your presentation and <br /> giving me all this information on how we can, I guess the cheapest way forward, right, <br /> that's what matters to me— because the cheapest way forward is the way that we can <br /> make it work out so. <br /> LL: Yeah,just to speak to that a little bit. So, [unclear] math, if you take what the County <br /> budget is currently for picking up animals off the street and they do a couple of other <br /> things, but primarily that's their role right now—is picking up free roaming dogs— <br /> picking up free roaming cats—culling the strays that come in—if you just look at the <br /> rough budget [unclear] are projected to serve in this year, you're looking at about 1,000 <br /> dollars an animal and that's only to get them to the point that you euthanize them or <br /> return them back to an owner or push them out to a rescue who then absorbs the cost <br /> of raising them for adoption, socializing them and marketing them. That's a far cost. It is <br /> far, far cheaper to tackle this effort using volunteers and a community cat management <br /> plan on the cat side. There are places that are doing the same thing with dogs, typically <br /> not done in the US—although I know there are some communities who are talking <br /> about it, but I think you have additional public safety concerns when you start talking <br /> about free-roaming dogs. <br /> LT: Yeah, right on, that's my main concern—just the finances cause I know when it costs a <br /> lot of money it doesn't get done so mahalo. <br /> TWC: I have a question, Taysen Wong Chong, District—2, you were mentioning about training <br /> for the feral cat feeding situation, would that be for anybody?The reason why I ask that <br /> question is because I feel like the feeding should not be acknowledged for the public <br /> where the feeding training should be for the Alliance or for the members that's gonna <br /> be involved with the whole structure—that way the—cause I know people who abuse <br /> that authority—they gonna get trained—they gonna say, well, I did the training, and I <br /> know it's gonna become an issue with that situation in the long run. <br /> LL: That's a great point so we have a lot of people on this Island just feeding cats. We have a <br /> lot of people feeding in inappropriate standards, so the training is probably gonna be <br /> pretty broad, but they're not only getting the best practices, they're gonna have to <br /> agree to a code of conduct and that's when we need help with the enforcement <br /> because we're gonna have people who are not—who are gonna get the training and <br /> maybe bend the rules a little bit. Initially, we're gonna need to be very public about <br /> enforcing that, and you can have your—and probably put in place some standards that <br /> if you violate this—you can have your registration revoked and then be cited for, for <br /> feeding if your' not able to feed at those standards, and, so I think, yeah, we need to talk <br /> about that, I mean, our plan is to get it out broadly, but need to be connected in our <br /> communication network if they're going to be doing this, that would be one of the <br /> requirements because there are gonna be things that come up— public health concerns <br /> 16 <br />